Speaker 1: I get are you bloody Champions, It's Jumbo, It's Craig
Speaker 1: Anthy Harper, It's the You Project. It's Rena Ingles, It's me,
Speaker 1: it's you, It's us, wherever you are, whatever you do
Speaker 1: and happy, bloody, terrific. Renee Ingles, Welcome to the You Project.
Speaker 2: Oh it is so good to be here. Greg, super excited.
Speaker 2: I want to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to have you. I'm like, it's funny
Speaker 1: when I interview or chat with interviews the wrong word.
Speaker 1: But when I chat with my friends that I've known
Speaker 1: for a very long time, it's different. It's a different energy.
Speaker 1: I interviewed a lady last night who was amazing, an
Speaker 1: author and a creative and the name's Samantha Wills, and
Speaker 1: she's a big deal and she's got all these followers
Speaker 1: and it was great and she was lovely. But it's
Speaker 1: a completely different preparation and different mindset and different energy
Speaker 1: to talking. Like, I feel like I don't need to
Speaker 1: get myself in a different state. But because I know
Speaker 1: I know you, I kind of know the vibe and
Speaker 1: the energy and the emotion, so I don't have to
Speaker 1: be on guard. You know, when you're talking to a stranger.
Speaker 1: You're always thinking, I wonder how this will go. I
Speaker 1: wonder what they're like, and I wonder how they'll be
Speaker 1: around me because I'm a lot So I've been excited.
Speaker 2: Oh honestly, so have I.
Speaker 3: And I would say even coming on as a guest,
Speaker 3: I would say exactly the same thing. Like, my preparation
Speaker 3: for your podcast is very different to another podcast of
Speaker 3: where I maybe don't know the host as well as
Speaker 3: I know you, And my preparation for you was nothing.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm going to show up today and
Speaker 3: I'm going to be me and I'm going to have
Speaker 3: a great chat to Crago, and I've been really excited
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: One hundred per And for those of you who are thinking,
Speaker 1: what's Craigo? You probably heard me interview Bianca the other day.
Speaker 1: Who calls me Craigo. Charrell, who's been on the show,
Speaker 1: calls me Crago, And so people who over the journey
Speaker 1: have been close to me, like a lot of family
Speaker 1: and friends. Is probably about aty people in the world
Speaker 1: who call me that. So if you hear someone call
Speaker 1: me that, you know that we're at some stage been
Speaker 1: quite intertwined in our journeys. Did you hear me. You
Speaker 1: probably didn't, but did you? Did you know? I chatted
Speaker 1: to be the other day.
Speaker 3: I was about to say, I can't believe I haven't
Speaker 3: listened to that one. Is that one out yet? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it came out the other day.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that one of my most favorite people
Speaker 3: in the whole wide world be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's such a bloody she's so smart too, bi Ancha.
Speaker 1: It's like, clearly a very good athlete Bianca Chatfield we're
Speaker 1: talking about. If you're not sure, go back a few episodes.
Speaker 1: You'll find her obviously a great athlete and all of that,
Speaker 1: but really quite creative, quite intelligent, good communicator. She's like,
Speaker 1: quite good at quite a lot of things, isn't.
Speaker 3: She Definitely, and very quiet about it. If you don't
Speaker 3: realize quite how intelligent Bianchor is, she's certainly not forthcoming
Speaker 3: with how much she does know, which I think.
Speaker 2: I like that about it intrigues me a little bit.
Speaker 2: Time with her. I learned something different.
Speaker 1: Mmmmmm, well when I was talking to her the other day,
Speaker 1: and well, your bio is significant as well. I learned
Speaker 1: something about you today that I did not know, but
Speaker 1: which I'll share in a moment, but yeah, you know. So,
Speaker 1: she hosts The Nettie on Fox. She hosted the afl
Speaker 1: W Footy Show for a couple of years. Oh, she
Speaker 1: does lots of media, lots of corporate speaking, lots of
Speaker 1: stuff in and around elite sport. You know, she owned gym,
Speaker 1: she she renovates homes, She was on the block. She was,
Speaker 1: of course alongside you are fucking superstar netballer representing the
Speaker 1: country something times like and and like you a mum
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff. So it's the transition from
Speaker 1: sport into life. Well, I know that sport and life
Speaker 1: are intertwine, but I guess the transition out of sport
Speaker 1: as an athlete everyone copes differently with. So for my
Speaker 1: listeners who don't, rather than me ring out, read out
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff, tell my listeners give them like
Speaker 1: the however much you want the backstory to you a
Speaker 1: bit of a snapshot of let's just start with the
Speaker 1: sports stuff and then we might go back beyond. Sure.
Speaker 3: Well, for me, I think I came through the pathway
Speaker 3: really traditionally, I was a Victorian netballer through and through.
Speaker 3: Started playing for my first state team when I was
Speaker 3: in grade six and literally just went through every level
Speaker 3: of state age. Was lucky enough to get a call
Speaker 3: up to the Melbourne Phoenix as a development player when
Speaker 3: I was only fifteen and would go in once a
Speaker 3: month and train with the team, and then honestly my
Speaker 3: netball journey just took off from there. I decided not
Speaker 3: to go to the Australian Institute of Sport because I
Speaker 3: thought I am in a club and in a team
Speaker 3: here training with the best athletes and best team in
Speaker 3: the world. Why would I chose to go on live
Speaker 3: in Canberra, away from my family and friends and play
Speaker 3: with girls at my level. So I decided and made
Speaker 3: the hard decision and was told I would never play
Speaker 3: for Australia because I made that decision. But the in
Speaker 3: Phoenix purple blood was just pumping through my veins forever
Speaker 3: really and went through and was lucky enough to play
Speaker 3: nationally for the Phoenix for the Melbourne Vixen's got it
Speaker 3: to a bit of a plateau in my career, so
Speaker 3: moved over to Adelaide for six years, was lucky enough
Speaker 3: to captain the club there, played for Australia. I went
Speaker 3: to two Commonwealth Games in a World championships and then
Speaker 3: from there kind of started life as a mum, went
Speaker 3: back to netball again, which is probably some of my
Speaker 3: favorite memories on the netball court. I was after coming
Speaker 3: home and now I'm sitting over here in Orlando, Florida
Speaker 3: as my husband plays in the NBA. So it's a
Speaker 3: seventeen year career. Feels like it just went by in
Speaker 3: a flash, absolute flash.
Speaker 1: Well, you were fifteen when you rock up at the Phoenix,
Speaker 1: and then seventeen years later you hung up the boots,
Speaker 1: so to speak. What do you remember of the first
Speaker 1: time like rocking up? I mean not even a teenager,
Speaker 1: like an eighten or nine year old, like like three
Speaker 1: years before you were twelve, I mean you were you
Speaker 1: were just what was that like? Going into that environment with,
Speaker 1: as you said, probably the best club team in the
Speaker 1: world and definitely some of the best players in the
Speaker 1: world at that time, what was that like?
Speaker 3: Easily and at the time, Joyce Brown was actually the
Speaker 3: coach as well, so absolutely phenomenal coach. I remember feeling
Speaker 3: like a kid in that environment. But I remember the
Speaker 3: feeling just in my hands and running out in the
Speaker 3: cold to warm up and just going this is what
Speaker 3: I want to do with my life. I want to
Speaker 3: be like these girls. I want to be Lisbonila and
Speaker 3: Susan Meani. And remembering just I was a static, I
Speaker 3: was only allowed to come in once a month at
Speaker 3: that time, and there was your Briany Cargiles and your
Speaker 3: Julie Prendergast, and we would go as our little young
Speaker 3: group and train with them, and I aim to just
Speaker 3: not drop a ball and hope to not be seen,
Speaker 3: not to be noticed really at that time, and then
Speaker 3: fast forward a couple of years from there when we're
Speaker 3: actually contracted. It's that same thing. The one thing that
Speaker 3: I would say about the Melbourne Phoenix, which I think
Speaker 3: has held true through my entire career before and after sport,
Speaker 3: is just the people that I came into the environment
Speaker 3: with those older girls around me never treated us differently.
Speaker 3: They really did take us under their wing and show
Speaker 3: us the way and didn't give us any favors. Let's
Speaker 3: say that it was work. You turned up and if
Speaker 3: you're rocking up ready to train, then you rock up
Speaker 3: and ready to train. There's no going easy on one.
Speaker 3: And I learned that from day one in that environment,
Speaker 3: and I loved that about the environment. I think when
Speaker 3: I think about sport now and even some of the
Speaker 3: teams I played with in later in my career, I
Speaker 3: think that old school mentality is not around anymore. It's
Speaker 3: very very different environment and elite now. So I think
Speaker 3: that held through with me for most of my career.
Speaker 1: When I started. When I started working with the Phoenix,
Speaker 1: you girl, I'd come out of football, so I'd worked
Speaker 1: in AFL for four years with Some Kilda and then
Speaker 1: with Port Melbourne and the VFL, and like lots of blokes,
Speaker 1: I'd worked with lots of men and track athletes and
Speaker 1: kind of fighters and a few swimmers, and like also
Speaker 1: quite a few women, but disproportionately more blokes. And then
Speaker 1: from the rest of my career it has been eighty
Speaker 1: percent women, which is amazing in terms of athletes. But
Speaker 1: I remember coming in thinking, I guess, not really having
Speaker 1: high expectations because the sport then was semi professional. You
Speaker 1: girls were paid fuck all. You were all either studying
Speaker 1: or working and playing netball, and you were expected to
Speaker 1: train and did train like full time elite athletes, which
Speaker 1: you weren't, but you were elite athletes. But you all
Speaker 1: had to support yourselves, either academically or financially, and I
Speaker 1: remember thinking, I don't know what I expected, but I
Speaker 1: was blown away by the intensity and the ferocity and
Speaker 1: the fucking take no prisoners in training, in training, and
Speaker 1: then and then I rocked up and I'd never this
Speaker 1: is to my own detriment, right, But I got asked
Speaker 1: by the then coach if I would come along and
Speaker 1: do some conditioning works, which kind of grew and grew
Speaker 1: until you know, I was there for a long time
Speaker 1: and played, you know, in that space, a reasonable role,
Speaker 1: I guess. But I remember the first game of the
Speaker 1: first season, when I'd been there only maybe a few months,
Speaker 1: doing all the preseason and training and conditioning and building
Speaker 1: a relationship with all you girls slash women, And I
Speaker 1: came to the first game and I was in the
Speaker 1: change rooms and everyone was just hanging out and chatting
Speaker 1: and laughing and talking shit. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember this story. I've told this once or twice,
Speaker 1: but I remember being really worried because I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 1: where are their heads? Like they are not like they're
Speaker 1: just talking bullshit. No one's focused, like we're going out
Speaker 1: in twenty minutes. Everyone's fucking giggling and there's music playing,
Speaker 1: and there's this is this is bullshit, this is not
Speaker 1: elite sport and all this because in the AFL rooms,
Speaker 1: like it's like quite intense, you know, intense, and there
Speaker 1: were funny things. It wasn't it was like a good environment,
Speaker 1: a fun environment. But then then everyone ran out and
Speaker 1: it was just like everyone crossed that line and it
Speaker 1: was like two different people, two different teams. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. And probably at the top of the
Speaker 1: list in terms of white line fever. I mean, you
Speaker 1: were okay yourself, but Bianca who went from being the
Speaker 1: nicest person to the biggest bitch, and she would say that,
Speaker 1: she would say that, she said it the other day
Speaker 1: and she's like, yeah, I wasn't. Yeah, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to shake anyone's hand. I didn't want to. I wasn't
Speaker 1: in for that warm and fuzzy you know. Maybe afterwards,
Speaker 1: but I remember, I can't I can't remember which athlete
Speaker 1: it was, but someone held out their hand to her
Speaker 1: and she pushed it away.
Speaker 3: Or one of those girls. Feaver came became worse depending
Speaker 3: on who we're playing. Like when it was Phoenix Viva
Speaker 3: Sydney Swift, it was on like it was on.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're the same at training, Like we got
Speaker 2: the same at training.
Speaker 3: I would expect if I was running past and I
Speaker 3: was in Bianca's way, that I'd get clipped.
Speaker 2: Just get on with it.
Speaker 1: So your husband, as you said, Joe plays for the
Speaker 1: Timberwolves Minnesota timbwlves in the NBA. Has been a bunch
Speaker 1: of teams. Is he's, without doubt one of Australia's best
Speaker 1: ever basketball has done incredible stuff. You you did more
Speaker 1: than what you said. You played sixty seven games for Australia,
Speaker 1: you won a World Championship, you won common Wealth Games gold,
Speaker 1: common Wealth Games silver. You've got a master's degree in
Speaker 1: high performance, Is that right? You've got you know, you've
Speaker 1: got to like, you've done some incredible shit, right, But
Speaker 1: since you were a kid, you've been around high performance,
Speaker 1: whether or not that's in sport or in mindset or both. Right,
Speaker 1: tell me about the importance of being around people who
Speaker 1: drag you up.
Speaker 3: Oh, for me, I think being around people that raise
Speaker 3: your standards all the time of the reason that I
Speaker 3: got to where I was, I think for me, I
Speaker 3: had talent and I had skill, But I think it's
Speaker 3: always been the hard work that has held me to
Speaker 3: where I am, and I actually think when I think
Speaker 3: of my career and look back at what I was
Speaker 3: able to achieve, I'm really grateful for it, But what
Speaker 3: I actually think about is so much hard work behind it.
Speaker 3: None of that came naturally for me, especially physically, which
Speaker 3: a lot of people towards the end of my career
Speaker 3: used to think that I was this physical beast, and
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, I've worked for ten years to
Speaker 3: be this physical beast because of some feedback, honestly that
Speaker 3: I had received when I as young as seventeen eighteen nineteen.
Speaker 2: With you guys and your.
Speaker 3: Team, having good people around you is crucial for any success.
Speaker 3: I think, whether that is performance on the Sporting cort, performance,
Speaker 3: performance as a mum, performance in your relationships, music, whatever
Speaker 3: it is that your career does. The people that you
Speaker 3: have around you, I think is crucial to your success
Speaker 3: or your lack thereof success, and then also your enjoyment
Speaker 3: of that too, because you know the team that you're
Speaker 3: in and the people you're around, the enjoyment that you have,
Speaker 3: I think that leads to better results and stuff as well.
Speaker 3: And I think I've always been held to really high
Speaker 3: standards since literally since I was a little.
Speaker 2: Girl in the home that I grew up in.
Speaker 3: It was, you know, looking the right way, presenting the
Speaker 3: right way, working hard, finishing things that I start. If
Speaker 3: you commit to something, you're committed to it. There's no
Speaker 3: dropping out, there's no quitting. All of those sorts of
Speaker 3: things up and through teams and coaches and you know
Speaker 3: the expectations and goals that you have to meet. And
Speaker 3: I think that's both been a strength and a weakness
Speaker 3: for me. Always wanting to be the absolute high performer
Speaker 3: has been something obviously that I look back on my
Speaker 3: career and I'm grateful for because of what I was
Speaker 3: able to achieve.
Speaker 2: But I think everything comes at a cost.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that, so beautiful segue.
Speaker 1: Thank you for doing that. So one of the dichotomies
Speaker 1: of sport is that on the one hand, you almost
Speaker 1: have to be, if not have to be obsessed. An
Speaker 1: obsession ain't healthy, right, It's like, well, you have to
Speaker 1: sacrifice a lot, Like there's a even if you're talented,
Speaker 1: and there's still all the work and there's still all
Speaker 1: the external variables, you know, diet, nutrition, sleep, recovery, injury management,
Speaker 1: you know, psychology, all that. There are so many things
Speaker 1: that contribute to the end product, which is your performance
Speaker 1: as an athlete and also the performance as a team.
Speaker 1: But in the middle of that, you know, sometimes what
Speaker 1: we see, what you've seen, definitely, what I've seen is
Speaker 1: people who are amazing athletes but kind of almost broken
Speaker 1: humans because you know, in some ways their world class
Speaker 1: and in some ways you know they're emotional messes when
Speaker 1: no one's looking right. It's not an easy thing because
Speaker 1: everything comes at a cost. Tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about what if if you're comfortable to some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that you struggled with off court in terms of
Speaker 1: you the human, you, you, the mum, you, the sister, you,
Speaker 1: the daughter, you, the person just trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how the fuck life works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how deep do you want to go? Craig?
Speaker 3: I think want to I think that for me, sport
Speaker 3: and how hard I was able to work and what
Speaker 3: I was able to achieve through that became my badge
Speaker 3: of honor and my shield. So when it came to emotions,
Speaker 3: I didn't show any It was really easy for me
Speaker 3: physically and even psychologically to lock in that there is
Speaker 3: this greater cause and this goal I've got to reach
Speaker 3: and anything that gets me in the way, I'm going
Speaker 3: to tear down. And I think I lost myself along
Speaker 3: the way in that, especially as a leader, in that
Speaker 3: I grew up in a time and felt in the
Speaker 3: house that I grew up that emotion was weakness, and
Speaker 3: that leader, I always had to be the strongest one,
Speaker 3: the fittest one, and that meant not showing the emotions,
Speaker 3: getting on with it, having that grit and that resilience
Speaker 3: and all of those things which I think left the
Speaker 3: human renee behind, and robot machine renee was made and
Speaker 3: that was the easy part of doing it.
Speaker 2: I was able to do that.
Speaker 3: And then I think when you get into the next
Speaker 3: phase of your life and after sport, when all of
Speaker 3: a sudden you're not achieving things, or not getting the
Speaker 3: external pat on your back, or not connecting with people
Speaker 3: as well as you would because that's not what you
Speaker 3: knew you would naturally do. It's incredibly hard. And I
Speaker 3: just think life as an athlete as another layer to
Speaker 3: that is you have to be selfish, You have to
Speaker 3: be obsessed, and you have to be selfish when it
Speaker 3: comes to what you eat, what you drink when you sleep,
Speaker 3: what you wear, like when you train, Everything that you
Speaker 3: do in your day revolves around you and your performance.
Speaker 3: And then for me, transitioning out of that and becoming
Speaker 3: a mum, which you have to be the most unselfish
Speaker 3: human being in the world because nothing is about you anymore,
Speaker 3: has been quite a big identity shift. But long story short,
Speaker 3: I think I lost my identity along the way in
Speaker 3: my career because so much of who I was was
Speaker 3: tied up in Renee as the netballer and Renee is
Speaker 3: the athlete, and in all realms of my life, I
Speaker 3: would show up as Renee as the netballer and the
Speaker 3: Renee as the athlete, and that was my brand and
Speaker 3: lost the human side of me along the way.
Speaker 1: Wow, where did you Where did you learn that? Without
Speaker 1: trying to throw anyone under the bus, any family member
Speaker 1: under the bus, but where did you learn that emotions
Speaker 1: equal weakness?
Speaker 3: I think I grew up in a house that we
Speaker 3: didn't have a lot financially. I think my parents were incredibly,
Speaker 3: incredibly hard workers in their own right and together trying
Speaker 3: to put food on the table and keep the lights
Speaker 3: on in the house for my siblings and I I
Speaker 3: was the oldest, so have always taken the care take
Speaker 3: a role. So I think I learned really early on
Speaker 3: that one if I was achieving, and if I was
Speaker 3: people pleasing and essentially being this chameleon that could mirror
Speaker 3: the person sitting across me and give them the answer
Speaker 3: that I thought they wanted from me and nice mind
Speaker 3: and be the easy child, that that was the way
Speaker 3: to go. And I think just even growing up in
Speaker 3: a time where like showing emotion and be like, I
Speaker 3: don't play like a girl. Like you'd hear that, don't
Speaker 3: play like a girl. So I was like, ohyeah, I've
Speaker 3: got to be the top all of the time. And
Speaker 3: then I even just think about like my teenage years,
Speaker 3: a couple of teams that I missed out on where
Speaker 3: i'd be really upset. I think I got good feedback
Speaker 3: around how tough I was to like just pick myself up,
Speaker 3: get back in the gym the next day. It's hard,
Speaker 3: work out to be better next week or to make
Speaker 3: the next team, And started getting recognition from that, so
Speaker 3: you start going, Okay, I'm on a good thing here.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think just over time it chipped away,
Speaker 3: and then leadership positions and stuff I think connection for
Speaker 3: me wasn't something that came naturally because I was quite shy.
Speaker 3: I've always had a pretty low self esteem or like
Speaker 3: critiquing in a voice with me, So I think connection
Speaker 3: early on wasn't easy. So I think I felt like
Speaker 3: if I was showing emotion, that I was putting something
Speaker 3: on someone else. So I always wanted just to be
Speaker 3: the happy one, the nice one, the one that wanted
Speaker 3: to be liked and valued and loved. So I to
Speaker 3: say thing rather than say my thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I mean my time you know, spent around you,
Speaker 1: me and a coaching role, you were in an athlete role.
Speaker 1: It was I've never told you this. It was almost
Speaker 1: like you were a little bit like, give us a hug,
Speaker 1: but fuck off though yes, yes, like I always say,
Speaker 1: Tiff who works with me? Tif TIFFs, TIFF's really the
Speaker 1: ice is broken with her. But for a long time,
Speaker 1: it's like she wears a T shirt that says, give
Speaker 1: me a hug, and at the same time a baseball
Speaker 1: cap that says, nah, fuck off, just kidding, you know,
Speaker 1: And you were like, you're always pleasant, you're always professional,
Speaker 1: You're always nice. But it was I found it hard
Speaker 1: to get through the renee Veneer, you know, and then
Speaker 1: then but I mean we got them well, there were
Speaker 1: no problems and it was all you know, it was.
Speaker 1: It was friendly enough. But then it's funny because you
Speaker 1: and I have reconnected in the last I don't know,
Speaker 1: month or two, and we've spoken a bit, and we've
Speaker 1: you know, we've connected interacted, and you've jumped in one
Speaker 1: of my groups and fucked around a bit and contributed
Speaker 1: to the group, and we've spoken like this. If you
Speaker 1: and I feel like I've gotten to know you more
Speaker 1: in a probably you know, four or five chats than
Speaker 1: however many years that was because you're you're the same,
Speaker 1: but you're not the same.
Speaker 3: Now, totally agree, and that has taken Obviously, I'm a
Speaker 3: lot older now. When you first met me, I was
Speaker 3: seventeen eighteen and trying to navigate what that meant for
Speaker 3: a young girl in elite sports and trying to work
Speaker 3: out relationships and all of the things. But yeah, I think,
Speaker 3: through more of my career than not, that is the
Speaker 3: way I was. I thought letting people in, I mean
Speaker 3: you know this, you know this in relationships, but letting
Speaker 3: people in gave me the opportunity to be let down,
Speaker 3: so not letting people in was easier, and wearing this
Speaker 3: hard armor and just being this elite athlete.
Speaker 2: I thought it was going to serve me better. Now.
Speaker 3: Of course, if I had my time again, i'd do
Speaker 3: things a little bit differently, but you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's all part of it. It's part of growth.
Speaker 3: One thing that I will say throughout my entire career,
Speaker 3: even since I was a little girl, I've loved to learn.
Speaker 2: I've loved growth. I'm obsessed with learning, obsessed with growth,
Speaker 2: want to.
Speaker 3: Be better, I love evolving, I love learning new things
Speaker 3: about myself. So that is a part of life now
Speaker 3: and starting to get closer to the age of forty
Speaker 3: and up there that I'm actually really enjoying that self
Speaker 3: awareness piece and how much that is growing, and why
Speaker 3: I want to do the work that I'm doing at
Speaker 3: the moment and work with athletes and people that are
Speaker 3: still doing it, because if they can harness some of
Speaker 3: that stuff about who they are as people, not just
Speaker 3: what their job title is or what they identify like
Speaker 3: with are they an athlete or whatever, who they are
Speaker 3: as a person away from the court. Because I didn't
Speaker 3: give enough time to that. I just put everything whilst
Speaker 3: I was still studying and working out what life was
Speaker 3: going to look like and navigating those relationships that so
Speaker 3: much of my identity was tied to the athlete and
Speaker 3: who she was.
Speaker 1: I know there's a million answers to this, but in
Speaker 1: general terms, so now you're the thirty eight year old
Speaker 1: mum of three elect an ex elite athlete, wife to
Speaker 1: a current elite athlete. You're in and around high performance
Speaker 1: and have been most of your life, and now you've
Speaker 1: got more experience, more miles on the clock. You've got
Speaker 1: a different perspective, you've got more understanding and self awareness
Speaker 1: and other awareness, and mentally, emotionally and socially, you've evolved
Speaker 1: a lot. So now we plunk you in front of
Speaker 1: a group of people who are basically a version of
Speaker 1: you twenty years ago. What are the things that you
Speaker 1: want to share with them? How do you want to
Speaker 1: connect with them?
Speaker 3: For me, I think it's about them understanding themselves. So
Speaker 3: I'm not asking them about their sport. I'm not asking
Speaker 3: about what teams they have or haven't made. I'm not
Speaker 3: asking about what their goals are in that realm. I
Speaker 3: want to know what they're passionate about, what fills their cup?
Speaker 3: What do other people? What do they bring to other people?
Speaker 3: What do they love? Who are the relationships?
Speaker 2: Who's holding them up? I think?
Speaker 3: I think what I've learned is that connection can really
Speaker 3: affect your quality of life, and connection really affects your performance.
Speaker 2: So what do those connection pieces think?
Speaker 3: Because I have always thought and any girl that sits
Speaker 3: in front of me, and even my daughter is eight
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to have these conversations with her now
Speaker 3: that my badge of honor was how independent I was.
Speaker 3: I'm this independence wrong, kick ass, superhuman, right, But there's
Speaker 3: only so much I can achieve on my own, and
Speaker 3: that interdependency is what actually, that connection piece is what's
Speaker 3: actually going to make us thrive, not just survive. Because
Speaker 3: for a long time I was just driving, so I
Speaker 3: would who's in your corner? How are they helping you?
Speaker 3: And how are you helping them? And what is it
Speaker 3: you actually love? M I think so much of us
Speaker 3: I would or like if people back then had said
Speaker 3: to me, hi, who are you? I would say, Hi,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm an buller.
Speaker 1: Yes, so interesting. It's like independences, like that defiant independence.
Speaker 1: It's like a two edged sword because on the one hand,
Speaker 1: it's like, fuck people, I don't need people. I'm fuck
Speaker 1: I can do this. And on the other side, you're like, well,
Speaker 1: if I need people, that's a dependency and that's weak, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's I used to be a little bit like
Speaker 1: that too, because in a different realm, but trying to me,
Speaker 1: trying to succeed build something that would work, not as
Speaker 1: an athlete, but as a whatever, as a business person, entrepreneur, creator, scientist, whatever,
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out, and it's it's the same.
Speaker 1: And you know, the other I guess curveball in the
Speaker 1: middle of this is as an elite athlete, when you're
Speaker 1: in demand, like you you work for a very long
Speaker 1: time and still are to a level I'm sure, but
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of people who want something from you.
Speaker 1: So I think sometimes it's like I get you probably
Speaker 1: get as many I get, I don't know, ten times
Speaker 1: a week someone who has an opportunity for me, And
Speaker 1: then I look in I go, the only person that's
Speaker 1: an opportunity for is them, you know, because they want
Speaker 1: something from me, and it's just it's a sales pitch
Speaker 1: dressed up as a fucking opportunity. And so you know,
Speaker 1: not that you want to be overly cynical, but you
Speaker 1: still have to be careful about for whom you open
Speaker 1: the door to your heart and your head, right, And
Speaker 1: so there's not everybody is not everybody that's here to
Speaker 1: help is here to help. No.
Speaker 3: I agree, it's such a hard thing to navigate. And
Speaker 3: I think what I'm learning now and a lot of
Speaker 3: this especially, and you know, it's a bit of a buzzword,
Speaker 3: but like vulnerability, is that you've just got to take
Speaker 3: the risk, like with other people.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: I was never the one to get vulnerable first or
Speaker 3: put myself out there because I was scared of what
Speaker 3: was going to happen.
Speaker 2: But it almost takes that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just think I would love to
Speaker 1: I would love to play this. I'd love to play
Speaker 1: this chapter seventeen year old you, you would have gone,
Speaker 1: who the fuck is that?
Speaker 2: I literally would? Yes, Yes, I know.
Speaker 1: Tell me about so knowing what you know, having been
Speaker 1: where you've been, and kind of you and Joe have had,
Speaker 1: you know, like similar journeys from a sport and development
Speaker 1: and getting to the pointy end of where you could
Speaker 1: get to in your chosen field. And now I know
Speaker 1: you're much more than this, But part of your role,
Speaker 1: I guess is support crew for him. You know, of
Speaker 1: course you're a lot more than that, but that's you know,
Speaker 1: to support your husband. And what does that look like?
Speaker 1: How do you how do you know how much to say,
Speaker 1: when to say, when to shut the fuck up, when
Speaker 1: to step in, when to step away? Because I feel
Speaker 1: like that's a skill set.
Speaker 3: One thing that I would say, and Joe and I
Speaker 3: have been together now about fifteen years, never ever have
Speaker 3: I ever given him any sort of feedback on a
Speaker 3: basketball skill ever, nor because he'd laugh in my face
Speaker 3: and say, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: But when it.
Speaker 3: Comes to body language, how is moving his facial expressions,
Speaker 3: how his energy looks, how he was contributing to the
Speaker 3: group or not contributing to the group, what he is
Speaker 3: doing in the lead up. Is this beneficial for you
Speaker 3: and your performance? All of those stuff around who he
Speaker 3: is an athlete? Absolutely, I say it, and we have
Speaker 3: really good healthy conversations around that. But I would just
Speaker 3: never ever give him any sort of skilled basketball advice,
Speaker 3: just on the reverse that he would have never done
Speaker 3: that to me in netball. But I would have to
Speaker 3: say that as being an ex athlete myself. Is one
Speaker 3: of the best things about being married to Joe, and
Speaker 3: one of the hardest things about being married to Joe
Speaker 3: is that my career is done, and there's almost this
Speaker 3: sense of like, oh, if I'd done this then, or
Speaker 3: I know this, so you should know this now and
Speaker 3: let me help you with this, or do this because
Speaker 3: it's differently, and one day that'll be gone and you know,
Speaker 3: all of the feelings of what I've lost that he
Speaker 3: still gets to do, and then the feeling of me
Speaker 3: walking into his stadiums and sitting there and being so
Speaker 3: happy to love and support and watch him do his thing.
Speaker 2: Of course as an.
Speaker 3: Eleinem in my heart where I'm like, oh, I'd love
Speaker 3: to be back in the stadium full of people that
Speaker 3: are cheering for me out there. But yeah, Joe and
Speaker 3: I our entire careers have gone about things completely differently.
Speaker 3: We're like chalk and cheese athlete that he is as
Speaker 3: opposed to the athlete that I am, and our preparation
Speaker 3: and who we are as athletes has always been really different,
Speaker 3: and I actually think that has been a really nice
Speaker 3: balance because he can calm my farm and I can
Speaker 3: energize him and have some more of those high performance
Speaker 3: behaviors that he wouldn't necessarily have had in the first place.
Speaker 1: What's harder? I think I know the answer. Elite's elite
Speaker 1: sport or being a mum.
Speaker 3: I'll be a mum by far. Elite sport is easy.
Speaker 3: That is the easy part as compared to.
Speaker 2: Being a mum.
Speaker 3: Best, best job in the world, hardest and most mundane, resilient,
Speaker 3: twenty four o'clock that never ends, but worth every minute.
Speaker 1: Definitely tell us about the kids.
Speaker 3: I have eight year old twins, Jacob and Miller and
Speaker 3: Jack who will before next month. They are all they're
Speaker 3: three independent, completely different to each other kiddos, which keeps
Speaker 3: me on my toes. Jacob, who is one of the
Speaker 3: twins eight, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he
Speaker 3: was two and a half, so we've been navigating that
Speaker 3: for the last six years or so. Sounds crazy saying
Speaker 3: that it's been six years, but I am raising three
Speaker 3: American children. They have American accents. They don't know the
Speaker 3: Australian anthem, they know the American anthem. They Yeah, it's crazy,
Speaker 3: three little American kids over here.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting, isn't it. I didn't think of that.
Speaker 1: I didn't think of that. And yeah, wow, and do
Speaker 1: they they just see themselves as American.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think the twins now, as they get older,
Speaker 3: they're starting to understand now the difference and oh, we
Speaker 3: are from Australia.
Speaker 2: Jack of course has no idea, he's too young.
Speaker 3: But yeah, starting to understand now that Australia is home,
Speaker 3: and especially in this last trip and in June we
Speaker 3: came home, so that was really nice to see family.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and I think they're only just starting to
Speaker 3: comprehend how far away Australia is as home, and also
Speaker 3: starting to understand the relationships that their friends have with
Speaker 3: their families here that have aunties, uncles, grandparents all around
Speaker 3: them that they visit weekends and do things with. And
Speaker 3: that's not something that we have. So conversations that are
Speaker 3: starting to pop up in our house.
Speaker 1: And I know Joe recently, well not well recently, recently
Speaker 1: went to Minnesota and you're still in Florida. How's that going?
Speaker 3: It has been? We moved three times in three years.
Speaker 3: We were in Salt Lake City for eight years, then
Speaker 3: Joe got traded to Portland, then got signed with Milwaukee Bucks.
Speaker 2: Moved to Milwaukee, and then we were.
Speaker 3: There for ten months, and then he signed with Orlando,
Speaker 3: so we moved here to Orlando, have been here for
Speaker 3: twelve months, and honestly expected him to be signing here
Speaker 3: again a very last minute that like in the NBA,
Speaker 3: the business that it is, that changed and he had
Speaker 3: an opportunity to go to Minnesota. And before that had happened,
Speaker 3: we'd had the conversation that if he was going to
Speaker 3: be moving again, that it wasn't fair for the kids
Speaker 3: to be in four schools in four years. Three was
Speaker 3: a lot and a lot on me as mum. So yes,
Speaker 3: he moved to Minnesota about a month and a half
Speaker 3: two months ago. Now, I think for the first month
Speaker 3: I was riding on the high of we're used to this,
Speaker 3: we've done this before, We're used to him being away
Speaker 3: and on the road. But I think I have also
Speaker 3: grossly underestimated the mental load that it has on me
Speaker 3: of not having a finish line. So this is not
Speaker 3: a five day road trip. This is not a ten
Speaker 3: day road trip in two days home into five days away. Again,
Speaker 3: this is completely different. And Dad has his own house
Speaker 3: and lives in a different spot, and we have to
Speaker 3: try and work out times to get to him, and
Speaker 3: then when our weekends work that we could fly there.
Speaker 3: He's of course on the road in the West Coast,
Speaker 3: or you know, logistically.
Speaker 2: It is a nightmare.
Speaker 3: Even though it sounds really nice that we can fly
Speaker 3: between two cities and have two houses and give the
Speaker 3: kids snow and sunshine and all of that, but it's
Speaker 3: been incredibly difficult, probably more difficult than I thought it
Speaker 3: would be. But I think that's also on me and
Speaker 3: the super woman that I try to be for my
Speaker 3: family and the glue to keep us all together.
Speaker 2: That I can't keep.
Speaker 3: Juggling all of the balls all of the time, I
Speaker 3: don't think so navigating through some of that at the moment,
Speaker 3: and how I can get better support around me so
Speaker 3: that Renee doesn't burn out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the idea of some lifestyles is way
Speaker 1: better than the practical lived reality. You know, when you
Speaker 1: think husband's in the NBA, I'm living in Orlando. It's beautiful,
Speaker 1: it's Florida, it's it's you know, and while in some
Speaker 1: ways it's fucking amazing, but the experience is not always amazing, right.
Speaker 3: I have thought that since day one, and I will
Speaker 3: be the first to say that before Joe had signed
Speaker 3: in the NBA, like I would look at the NBA
Speaker 3: and go wow, and this wag life that people I
Speaker 3: genuinely think people think we have this most luxurious, incredible
Speaker 3: sport lived life, and that it's quite a lonely existence,
Speaker 3: especially for the families, and then especially when you get
Speaker 3: to a point in the player's career like Joe has
Speaker 3: been where he's one of the veterans, and that they
Speaker 3: are moving around a lot more. We actually were really
Speaker 3: lucky that we were in Salt Lake City for eight
Speaker 3: years with the role that Joe played, that's almost unheard of.
Speaker 3: So we were quite lucky to be able to entrench
Speaker 3: ourselves in a team and a community for that long.
Speaker 3: But it's definitely not the luxurious wag life that people.
Speaker 2: Think it is.
Speaker 3: It's quite lonely and logistically and mentally like incredibly tiring,
Speaker 3: not only on us, on Joe as well, And like
Speaker 3: I know they of course they get all of the
Speaker 3: bells and whistles and they get paid incredibly well to
Speaker 3: do what they do, So I'm not denying that for
Speaker 3: a second. We're very grateful and privileged in that aspect,
Speaker 3: but you know, eighty two games a year in all
Speaker 3: different states, all across the country. They work bloody hard too,
Speaker 3: and very, very tiring and exhausting in its own way.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot to navigate in this lifestyle, and
Speaker 3: a lot to navigate without a village around us.
Speaker 1: What happens when? What happens when the superstar you, it's
Speaker 1: just you. The kids are in bed, Joe's world away,
Speaker 1: it's just you and your thoughts and you and the
Speaker 1: shit hits the fan with you, like Kudie, who's your person?
Speaker 1: Who do you reach out to or what do you
Speaker 1: do like when you have, as we all do, when
Speaker 1: you have a bit of a moment or a meltdown,
Speaker 1: How do you navigate that?
Speaker 2: Good question.
Speaker 3: I don't allow myself to melt down that too often,
Speaker 3: if I'm being completely honest, But I do think if
Speaker 3: anyone's copying the brunt of that, that is Joe and
Speaker 3: I think that's actually been a good change in our
Speaker 3: relationship over the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: Before then, I didn't used.
Speaker 3: To unload to him because I didn't want to affect
Speaker 3: his performance or you know, have any marriage issues or whatever.
Speaker 3: How deep we get down that way, I think I
Speaker 3: have really good people around me, not a whole lot
Speaker 3: of people that understand this lifestyle, which I think is difficult.
Speaker 3: But my brother is a really good support system for me.
Speaker 3: I have a younger brother and a younger sister, but Tom,
Speaker 3: he too has three young kids, just like I do,
Speaker 3: and is just a good sounding board for me in
Speaker 3: that way. And I also have one of my really
Speaker 3: good friends in Salt Lakes, sity Emma, who I call
Speaker 3: on quite a lot and she usually gets like the
Speaker 3: mom side of the meltdowns. But I think your own
Speaker 3: mum's always on speed dollars as well. But I try
Speaker 3: not to call my own mum because I know that
Speaker 3: she'll worry too much about me as well. But I
Speaker 3: have my people, definitely help my people, But Joe is
Speaker 3: probably my biggest sounding board there.
Speaker 1: How has your mindset, thinking, feeling, operating system around managing
Speaker 1: your body changed. Obviously you're not training like an elite athlete,
Speaker 1: and you're not an elite athlete anymore, but you're still
Speaker 1: in I mean, you look like you could play right now.
Speaker 1: You look fucking amazing. How has that changed? Because I
Speaker 1: know a lot of most athletes that I've worked with
Speaker 1: have let's just say interesting relationships with their body and
Speaker 1: with food and with exercise. How does that go now
Speaker 1: that you're a thirty eight year old mum of three.
Speaker 3: I think I'm in the period of finding that the
Speaker 3: most difficult that I ever have. I think because I
Speaker 3: used to get paid to be fit.
Speaker 2: It was easy.
Speaker 3: That part of my job was being as fit as
Speaker 3: I could humanly be and put all of that time
Speaker 3: and energy into my body, and I needed.
Speaker 2: My body to perform.
Speaker 3: My body doesn't need to perform in the same way
Speaker 3: as that it used to as an athlete. But I
Speaker 3: think now more my focus is on long term. I
Speaker 3: think about you know, I think about me compared to
Speaker 3: my parents, and we have had kids quite a lot
Speaker 3: later than what my parents' generation do, And I think
Speaker 3: about my kids and if that gets later again, well,
Speaker 3: I want to be a grandparent that's around, that can
Speaker 3: look after my grandkids and play on the grass.
Speaker 2: And kick a football and do all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: So a lot of my focus now, i'd say is
Speaker 3: long term rene rather than now. However, I would say
Speaker 3: that I sit in the hardest part now when it
Speaker 3: comes to body and meat and self esteem, because I'm
Speaker 3: obviously not as lean as what I used to be
Speaker 3: as an athlete.
Speaker 2: I don't need to be.
Speaker 3: I also don't have the time or energy to put
Speaker 3: in as many hours and effort into all of that
Speaker 3: stuff as I do.
Speaker 2: It's just craziness.
Speaker 3: And I just you know, I'm thirty eight as well,
Speaker 3: so I don't think the intensity that I used to
Speaker 3: put my body through would do the same as what
Speaker 3: it did five ten years ago. Do I believe that
Speaker 3: if I worked hard enough that I could get out
Speaker 3: on the court and smash it and play again. Yes,
Speaker 3: but there is nothing to gain from that other than
Speaker 3: honestly filling the external pat on the back achievement.
Speaker 2: A little bit. Again, I would say.
Speaker 3: My relationship with my body over my entire career has
Speaker 3: been pretty consistent in that a lot of how I
Speaker 3: performed and how I felt about myself was connected to
Speaker 3: how I felt physically about myself. You may or may
Speaker 3: not remember this, but when I was seventeen, I was
Speaker 3: sat down by coach Lisa Alexander. I can put myself
Speaker 3: on the chair at the Courts where I was told
Speaker 3: that I looked great for an average person, but was
Speaker 3: carrying too much weight for an athlete and of course,
Speaker 3: as a seventeen year.
Speaker 2: Old girl, what I heard is your fat.
Speaker 3: So I think since that day, I was like, right,
Speaker 3: I'm always from this day going to be the leanest,
Speaker 3: the fittest. I'll never have that red mark against me,
Speaker 3: and I think I came pretty close to achieving that. However,
Speaker 3: I think in terms of, you know, I don't need
Speaker 3: to look fit, or tend or any of those things
Speaker 3: in a dress anymore. But that doesn't mean to say
Speaker 3: that I don't look in the mirror still and go, oh,
Speaker 3: but maybe if I just smashed myself for another couple
Speaker 3: of weeks or go back to these old habits. Of
Speaker 3: my vice was exercise, So I wouldn't say I had
Speaker 3: an unhealthy relationship with food in that I would restrict
Speaker 3: calories and stuff, but not enough to affect my performance,
Speaker 3: but enough that I would feel and look and new
Speaker 3: enough and even in the degrees that I did what
Speaker 3: I needed to do to fuel my body to stay
Speaker 3: and look the part, but also offorn with that as well.
Speaker 3: And I think coming out for retirement, coming into retirement
Speaker 3: and not training the way you always used to train,
Speaker 3: of course you're going to look and feel different. And
Speaker 3: then another layer that you didn't ask for, is that
Speaker 3: you come into this NBA wag life and I don't
Speaker 3: look like your average wag, right, Like I don't wear
Speaker 3: a lot of makeup. I don't have the big, beautiful
Speaker 3: curly hair over here in America.
Speaker 2: I'm not a tiny little whippet.
Speaker 3: I'm like an ex athlete, right, I've got muscles, i
Speaker 3: still work out.
Speaker 2: I'm like a taller, bigger girl.
Speaker 3: And that is quite hard from a self esteem perspective
Speaker 3: as well, when you're mixing with all of these beautiful,
Speaker 3: social media perfect girls when it's not me.
Speaker 1: Ah, that makes me laugh, But I get it. I
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 3: It just like yeah, and then you do you laugh
Speaker 3: at yourself, and then I go, well, I truly don't
Speaker 3: have the time or energy to do that anyway.
Speaker 2: Like even if I could, I could have my whole team.
Speaker 3: Of all of that, and I could dress in the
Speaker 3: labels and the fashion, but it's just not me. I'm
Speaker 3: like Deans and sneakers and Joe's teamhood because that's all
Speaker 3: I could throw on after getting the kids to bed
Speaker 3: and rushing to a game. So I think too, Like, obviously,
Speaker 3: given my age now and I've got three kids and
Speaker 3: Joe's been in the league for as long as he has.
Speaker 3: I don't care about that stuff as much as I
Speaker 3: did year one. But of course that I'm a woman
Speaker 3: think about Oh, I do.
Speaker 1: You know what, but I don't. Just yeah, firstly, I
Speaker 1: totally understand. But even you know, I'm a sixty one
Speaker 1: year old bug an idiot, and I still care what
Speaker 1: I look like. You know, It's like anyone who goes, ah,
Speaker 1: it's only about health and performance and function. For me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I call bullshit. Ye, everyone everyone cares a
Speaker 1: little bit what they look like. That doesn't mean you've
Speaker 1: got to be vain or conceited or egotistical. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe they exist, but I don't know that
Speaker 1: I've ever met anyone who absolutely doesn't care at all.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that needs to be the focus or
Speaker 1: the priority, but I'm like, well, you know I want
Speaker 1: to be My priority is definitely health, wellness, you know, function, performance, fitness, definitely,
Speaker 1: But also I don't want to look you know, I
Speaker 1: want to look as good as I can look for
Speaker 1: what I've got to work with. I think that's healthy
Speaker 1: and normal, and I think anyone who says that that's
Speaker 1: irrelevant is a fucking is a big fucking fibber. Hey,
Speaker 1: so you guys, I think he just turned thirty seven,
Speaker 1: like just last month or something. Yeah, so he's on
Speaker 1: the home straight of his career. He's probably not going
Speaker 1: to play till he's fifty. So whether or not that's
Speaker 1: another year or two or three, who knows when that's done.
Speaker 1: Are you going to stay there? Are you going to
Speaker 1: come to Australia or you're not sure? Or are you
Speaker 1: going to what are you? What are you going to do?
Speaker 3: This for us has changed over the last couple of years.
Speaker 3: I think we've always said the day that Joe retired,
Speaker 3: we're on the first plane back to Australia to be
Speaker 3: in Melbourne with family and friends and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: We have house and stuff in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Navigating the school system for my son who is autistic
Speaker 3: has been incredibly difficult, and with the changes and Australia
Speaker 3: at the moment when it comes to autism and special
Speaker 3: needs and even neurodiversity in schools is quite far behind
Speaker 3: compared to over here in the States. Anyway, we'd still
Speaker 3: plan to come back until we landed in Orlando and
Speaker 3: the three kids in the schools that they are in.
Speaker 3: This is another logistical nightmare. Craigar I have three kids
Speaker 3: in three different schools and no husband here to help,
Speaker 3: so it's a nightmare. But they're all really happy and thriving.
Speaker 3: But Jacob is in a school that he is He
Speaker 3: goes to school really happy, he comes home really engaged,
Speaker 3: and is just a different kid, which is part of
Speaker 3: the reason why we didn't move to Minnesota as well.
Speaker 3: But seeing him thrive and be happy in school makes
Speaker 3: it incredibly difficult for us to say, yep, we're on
Speaker 3: the first flight back home, because I don't I think
Speaker 3: for him it would be a step backwards in his
Speaker 3: education and the resources that he has around him. Then
Speaker 3: and then we'd also say that we landed in Florida
Speaker 3: and this was just like this La La land for us.
Speaker 3: I was like, I know, Disney's there, I don't know
Speaker 3: much else about it. Well, first winter here in Florida,
Speaker 3: it was just beautiful. We absolutely loved it here. So
Speaker 3: we went, oh my gosh, we've been over here in
Speaker 3: the league for ten years and we've done nothing. Let's
Speaker 3: get our green cards. So we got our green cards,
Speaker 3: so that now at least we have the option I
Speaker 3: Joe says that whenever he retires, whenever that is however
Speaker 3: many years A way that is that he just wants
Speaker 3: to sit on the couch and not do anything for
Speaker 3: twelve months, and I think that'll last a month of
Speaker 3: being like stay at home.
Speaker 2: Down and trying to kids.
Speaker 1: So I agree.
Speaker 3: He'll go into like coaching or something like that, a
Speaker 3: role with a team or front office or something like that,
Speaker 3: I think pretty quickly, which may keep us over here
Speaker 3: as well. I think we're just keeping our options open
Speaker 3: of what that can look like at the moment. But
Speaker 3: definitely a hard decision to make when it comes to
Speaker 3: Jacob and his schooling because it's just so important that
Speaker 3: he is the happiest version of him, and we've found
Speaker 3: that place for right now.
Speaker 1: Well that makes total sense. I mean I think it
Speaker 1: would almost be, you know, at this point in time,
Speaker 1: would be kind of unfair and a little bit mean
Speaker 1: to drag him out of that thing where he fits
Speaker 1: in well, you know where where you know just what
Speaker 1: you said, like he goes to school happy and he
Speaker 1: comes home happy or whatever you said. You know, I
Speaker 1: mean that's but for kids with those kinds of challenges,
Speaker 1: that's not always. In fact, that's often not the case.
Speaker 1: So you don't want to let that go in a hurry, right.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. It's like what we talked about at
Speaker 3: the start of this call, though. I think with everything good,
Speaker 3: there is a cost, and that for us is that
Speaker 3: we are a long way away from family and missing
Speaker 3: our nieces grow up, and my parents aren't getting any younger.
Speaker 3: I'm obviously now stepping back into bits and pieces of
Speaker 3: where I can in my career and fitting that in
Speaker 3: with the flexible remote stuff that I can.
Speaker 2: But I mean, obviously i'd.
Speaker 3: Love to be working in sport in Australia, and you know,
Speaker 3: I missing netball a lot and that environment, and I'm
Speaker 3: navigating that however I can. But yeah, there's a cost
Speaker 3: where there is also a reward. But what we will
Speaker 3: never ever regret in the future is picking the best
Speaker 3: place where the three of our kids are the happiest
Speaker 3: and thriving, and for right now, that's in Orlando.
Speaker 1: Before we wind up, tell us about you and I
Speaker 1: have spoken a little bit about the work that you're
Speaker 1: just starting to do and the business that you're developing,
Speaker 1: because you are very entrepreneurial and creative as well, what's
Speaker 1: the stuff that you're starting to do and want to
Speaker 1: do more of in the high performance landscape, whether or
Speaker 1: not it's in corporate or with athletes, or tell us
Speaker 1: about the work that you're creating and building.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm about four to six weeks away from launching
Speaker 3: a new business and I can't give you the name
Speaker 3: and all of that softest yet or my there'll we
Speaker 3: fire coming out of my team's ears.
Speaker 2: But what I can say is what it's.
Speaker 1: Not called the You project? Is it?
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 3: I promise I'd love to take that from you. Know,
Speaker 3: I'd actually love to do that with you. I think
Speaker 3: you're on a good thing, Grego. But no, it's an
Speaker 3: opportunity I think to get people to disconnect from the
Speaker 3: digital space and the world that we live in now
Speaker 3: and reconnect and collaborate with other like minded and even
Speaker 3: disagreeable people to reconnect again, in particular to start with
Speaker 3: women in a way, I think we're just getting a
Speaker 3: little bit lost as to who we are in this
Speaker 3: world and around What I touched on earlier.
Speaker 2: Actually is we're all better off.
Speaker 3: With connections and relationships and helping one another in those relationships.
Speaker 3: So hoping to just connect people again to each other
Speaker 3: so that we can all get a better quality of
Speaker 3: life and better performance out of ourselves in all realms
Speaker 3: of our lives. So I'm really excited to come into
Speaker 3: that space and obviously use you as a mentor, Cragio
Speaker 3: and pick your brain around aspects of that. But it's
Speaker 3: funny that you said that I'm entrepreneurial and creative, because
Speaker 3: I feel like I've spent my whole life feeling like
Speaker 3: I'm not creative and that I was going to go
Speaker 3: into like a job with one title, and that's what
Speaker 3: I thought that I was working towards with all of
Speaker 3: my study and all of that stuff, and life after netball,
Speaker 3: it's just gone in such a different way. But it's
Speaker 3: keeping it fun and exciting and just trying to, i guess,
Speaker 3: make an impact as I can while I can when
Speaker 3: I've got young kids and living in a different country
Speaker 3: and making the best of it and having fun with it.
Speaker 3: So it's actually it's been really nice reconnecting with you
Speaker 3: over the last four to six weeks.
Speaker 2: It really has. It's fun. There was actually one thing
Speaker 2: that I want to ask you about.
Speaker 1: Actually I'm ready.
Speaker 3: I have just been thinking about it because, as you know,
Speaker 3: I've been listening to a lot of your podcasts, and
Speaker 3: on nearly every single one of them, you say that
Speaker 3: you get the feedback from people that you're intimidating, And
Speaker 3: I think about seventeen year old Rena would have called
Speaker 3: you intimidating, whereas thirty eight year old Rena doesn't think
Speaker 3: you're intimidating. I actually think you're a big, soft, cuddly
Speaker 3: teddy bear that throws out some big swear words sometimes
Speaker 3: and acts tougher than what you really are in the interior.
Speaker 3: But I just about the people that are telling you
Speaker 3: that you're intimidating. Are you intimidating or are they intimidated.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because, like feeling intimidated or feeling any way
Speaker 1: about any personal around any person is an individual response.
Speaker 1: So I might have five people in front of me,
Speaker 1: and one person's intimidated, and one person's curious, and one
Speaker 1: person's excited and whatever. Right, So we have these five
Speaker 1: different kind of internal realities going on around this one
Speaker 1: external stimulus, Craig Harper, and so intimidation around me is
Speaker 1: an individual response. It's not a universal response, Otherwise I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to navigate life. But it is a
Speaker 1: good question because you know, look, even if and I
Speaker 1: had to realize this that but Craig, even if one
Speaker 1: in every twenty people says you're intimidating, and it was
Speaker 1: probably more than that at a time, was probably not
Speaker 1: in five or ten, I don't know. And even if
Speaker 1: I did not want to be timidating intimidating, which I didn't,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I am a fucking softy. I'm I love people,
Speaker 1: I want to help people and serve people, and I'm intense.
Speaker 1: I'm intense and I'm passionate. But never in a million
Speaker 1: years has it been on my goal is to be intimidating.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a little bit of both intimidating.
Speaker 3: I think That's where I'm coming from, is that I
Speaker 3: don't think you are intimidating. I think I think that
Speaker 3: people find it intimidating that you come across as very
Speaker 3: self assured.
Speaker 1: Probably look and I mean, but also look, I think
Speaker 1: what I think. I say, this is what I think,
Speaker 1: but I could be wrong. Who says that? And I
Speaker 1: go by the way, I get more things wrong than right,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's like the thing is being in
Speaker 1: a position like I am, which not that I'm anybody special,
Speaker 1: but where I have thousands of people every day listen
Speaker 1: to what I say for me, It's an absolute privilege
Speaker 1: and an honor right. But I also want to be
Speaker 1: the real, raw, honest me, not the fucking the Craig Show.
Speaker 1: And I can do. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the
Speaker 1: You Projector's harps. Today we're chatting with Renee. Yeah, come
Speaker 1: at you live from Florida. It's five pass Yeah, coming up.
Speaker 1: I can do the bullshit because I did twenty years
Speaker 1: of radio and even then it wasn't bullshit. But people don't,
Speaker 1: you know. I just have to accept that some people
Speaker 1: will be inspired by me, some people will think I'm
Speaker 1: a fucking idiot, some people will be a bit intimidated.
Speaker 1: I try to move through life with an awareness bigger
Speaker 1: than me. You know, theory of mind that I've spoken
Speaker 1: to you about, understanding how other people think and see.
Speaker 1: But if I am constantly overthinking, am I am I?
Speaker 1: Does this person like me? Am I scaring the shit
Speaker 1: out of them? Am I intimidating? How do they feel
Speaker 1: about me? And if I'm constantly doing that, then I'm
Speaker 1: not being present? So I'm well aware that, you know,
Speaker 1: the only person who sees me like me is me,
Speaker 1: and I'm well aware that my version of me is
Speaker 1: no one else's. You know. When I was at UNI
Speaker 1: first time, a guy called doctor Paul Callery, who played
Speaker 1: footy for Richmond and Saint Kilda. He was ahead of
Speaker 1: head of school for me, and he said to me,
Speaker 1: he said, if you never want yeah, if you never
Speaker 1: want to offend anyone, he said, say nothing, do nothing,
Speaker 1: be nothing, and stand for nothing. And I always remembered it.
Speaker 1: He's like, because some people, you know, like, I know,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm a lot. I'm a lot. But at least
Speaker 1: with me, you know where you stand, you know, and
Speaker 1: I you know. But yeah, thanks for the question. I
Speaker 1: try not to be but it is an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: And I find just an add on to that question.
Speaker 1: And this chat is when people say you make me
Speaker 1: feel like this, I go, Am I in charge of
Speaker 1: your feelings? Now? Am I in charge of your Oh? Wow? Wow?
Speaker 1: I'm somehow in charge of your No, I don't make
Speaker 1: you feel like that. You feel like that, because if
Speaker 1: I was in charge of how everyone feels, I'd make
Speaker 1: everyone feel happy. You know, Hey, it's been really nice.
Speaker 1: We should do it again, and I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: coming to the States in twenty twenty five. I don't
Speaker 1: know what that's going to look like, but you and
Speaker 1: I am maybe going to do a one day or
Speaker 1: a two days something. They'll go, who the fuck is
Speaker 1: that old preck over there next to that young hot
Speaker 1: elite athlete. But anyway, we'll figure something out.
Speaker 2: We'll have some fun persently.
Speaker 1: We definitely will. Hey, if people want to find you,
Speaker 1: connect with you, you know, learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about you. How to they do that?
Speaker 3: You can just find me on Instagram at Renee angles
Speaker 3: or renee angles dot com is my website as well.
Speaker 2: But yeah, usually Instagram is probably.
Speaker 3: The place, the easiest place in this landscape, isn't it.
Speaker 3: It's what people do these days, young people.
Speaker 1: I think it is. I think it is. Or just
Speaker 1: send a pigeon with a bloody message in its beak. Hey,
Speaker 1: I will say goodbye fair, but for now, Nay, thank
Speaker 1: you so much, love your guts, You're amazing. Congrats on
Speaker 1: everything you're doing. You're an inspiration and you are a
Speaker 1: creative You know what are creative because apart from other things,
Speaker 1: you're always solving problems and that's a creative process.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that. Thank you. It's been good.