Speaker 1: Welcome to the mentor. I'm Mark Boris Lewis Brown. I'm
Speaker 1: going to call you Louis Well the mentor mate.
Speaker 2: Thanks having Mark.
Speaker 1: You got your T shirt on there.
Speaker 3: Earl's Assex, I mean, pretty good brands to have alongside Eather.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about that in a moment. But
Speaker 3: I'm actually curious you're by the sound of accident. You're
Speaker 3: in New Zealand. Have you got islander parents?
Speaker 2: Now? So I grew up a single mum. So my dad,
Speaker 2: my dad he is he's this Kiwi park how like
Speaker 2: we call him white Kiwi back in New Zealand. And
Speaker 2: actually my mom were Moldy. So my grandparents were born
Speaker 2: in a small island off New Zealand, part of New
Speaker 2: Zealand still called but like Tasmania called the Chadam Islands.
Speaker 2: So that's where the roots sort of la run deep,
Speaker 2: sort of that multi heritage.
Speaker 1: So you murray in your mom's side and your dad's
Speaker 1: a white yeah y white white park. Yeah, they call
Speaker 1: it white.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was just like white person and molder white person. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And okay, so brother sisters.
Speaker 2: I've only got one older siblings. I've got one one
Speaker 2: half brother. He's younger than me. Don't really have much
Speaker 2: connection with him, but an older sister, she's five years
Speaker 2: older than me, and she lives she lives here in Sydney.
Speaker 2: So she's married with her to a Lebanese. My brother
Speaker 2: in law, he's a Lebanese and so we've got little
Speaker 2: half caste, moldy Lebanese running out of a Maryland's there
Speaker 2: and so got a nice bit of culture running through
Speaker 2: the family at the moment.
Speaker 3: It's a good mix. And you're you played footy, so
Speaker 3: we'll come to that in the moment. But like I'm
Speaker 3: always curious about you grew I presume you grew up
Speaker 3: in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so grew up, grew up and crash it. So
Speaker 2: born born in nineteen eighty six. It makes me thirty seven.
Speaker 2: Like I said to you before, Mark Studio, don't don't
Speaker 2: remind me. I've had a few people remind me lately.
Speaker 2: But yeah, grew up in christ Church, which is a
Speaker 2: really predominantly rugby city, not much rugby league going on that.
Speaker 1: End up getting the league.
Speaker 2: So how it sort of came about, Like I mentioned before,
Speaker 2: family tradition sorry, roots run back to the Chatham Islands
Speaker 2: and I'm not too sure if you remember, but my
Speaker 2: cousin he played for the Weston West Suburbs Magpies back
Speaker 2: in the day. His name is Brendan Tudor, so the
Speaker 2: baby Face Assassin they used to call him.
Speaker 3: I remember the side, yeah, because my uncle played for them,
Speaker 3: so like, yeah, there a big West Suburbs were a
Speaker 3: really popular site.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were my favorite team as a kid. That
Speaker 2: like Paul Langmack black and white jersey. Yeah, black and
Speaker 2: white jerseys. I've still got one as a kid with
Speaker 2: the Magpie on it, but anyone. Yeah, Shane Flanagan was there, Flanno,
Speaker 2: Britt Stewart who was from christ Which as well. So
Speaker 2: that that was my team as a kid, because you
Speaker 2: know when when you're younger and you have someone that's
Speaker 2: on TV or famous in your family, they become a hero,
Speaker 2: you see. So so Brendan was to my gateway to
Speaker 2: rugby league and my introduction to the to the sport
Speaker 2: and as a four year old, I just absolutely fell
Speaker 2: in love with it and it became my career after that.
Speaker 1: It was as much.
Speaker 3: IRL or rugby league, at least for juniors in a
Speaker 3: place like Cross Tip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is there's great. There's like the pathways are
Speaker 2: starting to get really good at the moment. When I
Speaker 2: was a kid, they were pretty strong. Towards the back
Speaker 2: end of my teenage career, like it basically moved. The
Speaker 2: numbers were running short. So basically on a Saturday, I'd
Speaker 2: play rugby, then on Monday night I'd play rugby league.
Speaker 2: And that was kind of the way it kind of went.
Speaker 2: So I was kind of the outcast at school. Went
Speaker 2: to school. All my mates were rugby players and I
Speaker 2: was a rugby league player, and you know, I would
Speaker 2: always argue about, you know, what sport was tougher. So
Speaker 2: it was cool to be able to kind of get
Speaker 2: my rugby mates to come play with me on a
Speaker 2: Monday night and then I'd played rugby with them on Saturday.
Speaker 2: And then it got to the age when I was
Speaker 2: thirteen or fourteen, I started making both rip teams Kenneby
Speaker 2: Rugby and Kenneby Rugby League. And rugby league was always
Speaker 2: my my journey and I got offered two scholarships to
Speaker 2: some prestigious schools and Christ Church, christ College and St Andrew's.
Speaker 2: But there's one catch. Yeah, I had to give up
Speaker 2: regul league and you know, for me, coming from a
Speaker 2: single mom who worked three jobs as a butcher and
Speaker 2: everything she could become was a butcher. She's a butcher.
Speaker 2: She's still there today school. Yeah so she's there of
Speaker 2: my stepdad's actually her boss, and yeah, so she worked
Speaker 2: really hard. And you know, for me, we both went
Speaker 2: to those interviews with those prestigious schools, and you know,
Speaker 2: I walked out. She's like, what do you think? And
Speaker 2: I was just like, mum, like, you know, they're trying
Speaker 2: to tell me what I can do at the age
Speaker 2: of thirteen, like I wanted this is the world's mind,
Speaker 2: Like I want to be able to create my own
Speaker 2: path where my dreams always to plan the NRAL back
Speaker 2: then it was the Winfield Cup. So I chose to
Speaker 2: go to public school, Papa Nui High and basically, you know,
Speaker 2: I spent two years there and then got my first
Speaker 2: kind of launch pad into you know, the system over here,
Speaker 2: and that was through the Sydney.
Speaker 3: Roosters and then uh, just by the way, and I
Speaker 3: should I would to make this clear, not that I
Speaker 3: disliked rugby union, but when someone says you're a bit
Speaker 3: of an outcast, that probably means you can tackle as
Speaker 3: a rugby league player, you can tackle low rugby union
Speaker 3: guys don't really, especially at the young age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, there's much tackle.
Speaker 2: Now there's not much. It's more grab and go for
Speaker 2: the ball.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And in New Zealand, like you know, like they used
Speaker 2: to call rugby league state house rugby. So they called
Speaker 2: state House rugby because over here we over here the
Speaker 2: housing Commission of the Housing Commissions, but back in New
Speaker 2: Zealand at state state housing. So that's what the rugby
Speaker 2: boys used to call it. And you know, I'd make
Speaker 2: rip teams and stuff like that, but I was the outcast.
Speaker 2: I was that rugby league boy that shouldn't be part
Speaker 2: of this rugby team, you know, like that all these
Speaker 2: boys were going to private schools and I was the
Speaker 2: only public school boy and I was playing both sports,
Speaker 2: and parents used to complain, but you know, it used
Speaker 2: to toughen me's bit.
Speaker 3: The same here, a bit similar here now because the
Speaker 3: private school boys are still playing rugby and because of
Speaker 3: my boys are in private school. But one of the
Speaker 3: issues that we always had was that they played rugby
Speaker 3: union for the school on Saturday, but they played rugby
Speaker 3: league on Sunday. Yeah, and the school didn't like it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and because they won't know whether maybe they had again
Speaker 3: get injured or something like that. And that in fact,
Speaker 3: as I got up up to higher grades as the
Speaker 3: kids got older at school, there were moments there with
Speaker 3: the school of Banya, they wouldn't let you play for
Speaker 3: the best team in the school if you played rugby league.
Speaker 2: It was pretty much like that when I was young
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah, it is, it is you kind of
Speaker 2: and as a kid you want to you know, you
Speaker 2: love sport like I come from an era where there
Speaker 2: was no technology internet, so you know, like it was
Speaker 2: you know, played till the lights came on. That's when
Speaker 2: you went home and you played both codes. That's that's
Speaker 2: how you made up your time. And that's that was
Speaker 2: what all my passion was, you know, rugby league, rugby basketball,
Speaker 2: even though I couldn't play it, and then touch footy
Speaker 2: that was always my summer sport. Got a bit into cricket,
Speaker 2: but it was never good at it. All I wanted
Speaker 2: to do was sixers and stuff like that. And you
Speaker 2: know I was always but always into rugby league. You know,
Speaker 2: I grew up My favorite player was Alfie Langer. I'm
Speaker 2: always always quite short, as a young kid playing half back.
Speaker 2: And you know, so I predominantly supported the Broncos and
Speaker 2: the Magpies when the Magpies went winning that the Broncos
Speaker 2: when my team until the Warriors came in at nine
Speaker 2: to five.
Speaker 1: Who recruited you into playing footy in.
Speaker 2: Australia, The great Arthur Beazza.
Speaker 1: So you would have come to the Roosters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, came to the Roosters. Very fortunate to come into
Speaker 2: a great pathway. To be honest, I was shipped myself
Speaker 2: leaving christ Church. You know, I was a massive Mummies
Speaker 2: boy as a kid, you know, not having a father
Speaker 2: figure around, you know. But but the hardest thing for
Speaker 2: me was to leave leave christ Church because that was
Speaker 2: comfort for me. And you know, even though I didn't
Speaker 2: have a dad, my Coddle which is grandfather of Maldi,
Speaker 2: my mom's dad, he stepped up and he was like
Speaker 2: my dad as a kid and he was the one
Speaker 2: that took me to rugby league each morning and feed
Speaker 2: me up for a coke and and a chocolate bar
Speaker 2: before we got to the field and I'd play. I'd
Speaker 2: play it under elevens and under twelves because I had
Speaker 2: so much energy and then you know, that was the
Speaker 2: hardest thing about coming to the Roosters was saying goodbye
Speaker 2: to them. And I used to get really homesick as
Speaker 2: a kid, and that was kind of the first huge
Speaker 2: obstacle I sort of came, like overcame as a young
Speaker 2: kid and a human being, was to leave mum and
Speaker 2: my grandfather and come over here. And you know, it's
Speaker 2: a you're a small fish and a big pond over
Speaker 2: here with basing exactly, mate, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And I actually got put up in Hall Street when
Speaker 2: they used to have and the Rooster's Home, so to
Speaker 2: live there with four twenty five year olds. I grew
Speaker 2: up playing with cso older, so it was one.
Speaker 1: Of my favorite places.
Speaker 3: Got he was like when he tackled, Yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah he went off to Canberra, of course, but it
Speaker 3: was sticky. But yeah, So you must have played with
Speaker 3: when Ricky Ricky Show was around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I played with when Ricky was playing and
Speaker 2: then I was in the Jusey Fleig team. So I
Speaker 2: lived in Hall Street and the Rooster's Home came in.
Speaker 2: Our Jusy Flig team was super talented, you know, Chaun
Speaker 2: kenney Dale, Frank Paul Noui Sala Sah obviously was up
Speaker 2: in the first grade. Another boyfriend christ at Sea Matassa,
Speaker 2: So you know, we all sort of found ourselves where
Speaker 2: we were and had a great coach and Jimmy Dimmock,
Speaker 2: you know, that hybrid five eight Locke who you know
Speaker 2: bounced from the Bulldogs to the Paramatta. But was was
Speaker 2: that that hard tonguing boy that you know, was a
Speaker 2: great player when great wrestling. He used to get his
Speaker 2: brother into Yeah yeah, yeah, mad wrestler. But just the
Speaker 2: camaraderie he brought, and you know that the swag that
Speaker 2: he walked around because you know, he he'd done so
Speaker 2: much in the game already and he was just great,
Speaker 2: a great coach to have around. And then obviously our
Speaker 2: trainer at the time as well was Bennie Gardner, who's
Speaker 2: actually part of the Panther system now, so full circle
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. And but really really enjoyed my time
Speaker 2: at the Roosters. And that was sort of the period
Speaker 2: when Reserve Grade was was linking up with Newtown, so
Speaker 2: they were playing out at Hinton Park. So you know,
Speaker 2: us Josey Flig boys we thought were the big wigs
Speaker 2: because we were playing before NRAL each week. I ad
Speaker 2: it Alliance. Back then it was a Sydney football stadium,
Speaker 2: so it was a great experience and you know, for
Speaker 2: me it was a dream come true.
Speaker 1: But what did you learn?
Speaker 3: What, like when those in those processes, Looking back though,
Speaker 3: what do you learn about yourself? Apart from the fact
Speaker 3: that you worked out you were able to sort of
Speaker 3: live without your mum. But when I say without your mom,
Speaker 3: like not in your mum's house, what did you learn?
Speaker 3: What techniques did you learn in terms of coping mechanisms?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a great question to be honest with you, Mark,
Speaker 2: Like there was many a night I'd cry to Mum
Speaker 2: wanting to come home, you know, even though it's I
Speaker 2: look back now and think it's only a two and
Speaker 2: a half hour flight. She was like, you've worked too
Speaker 2: hard to get to this. This is what all you've wanted,
Speaker 2: And like learning to cope without my mum, like learning
Speaker 2: to do washing, cooking, well, fortunate enough to have a
Speaker 2: cook at the at the Rooster's home. And then eventually
Speaker 2: as time went on, I sort of migrated out of
Speaker 2: the Rooster's home and learned to sign a lease for
Speaker 2: a rental property. This is all within the age of
Speaker 2: seventeen eighteen, and you know, had to grow up very
Speaker 2: very fast. And I think maturity was a massive one.
Speaker 2: You know, I was walking into a changing ship, you
Speaker 2: know at Wentworth Park, that's we used to train full time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like you know, like Minchello, if it's given Preithvanessa Rickardson,
Speaker 2: it's given Wingy, Amos Roberts. You know, there's so many,
Speaker 2: so many great players there. I just had to grow
Speaker 2: up like maturely, and maturity was a massive one. Back
Speaker 2: then it was you know, you didn't speak to anyone
Speaker 2: unless you were spoken to. It was hit down. That
Speaker 2: was like Ricky Sting. And just learned a lot about
Speaker 2: myself how how much you can go through but you
Speaker 2: can come out the other side. And that I really
Speaker 2: believe that's led a great foundation for me for you know,
Speaker 2: my time now as a human because I've gone through
Speaker 2: so much as a kid, but now you go through much,
Speaker 2: so much of an adult, and you can see light
Speaker 2: at the end of the tunnel, and just.
Speaker 1: How do you get that?
Speaker 3: How do you get like, how do you keep that positive?
Speaker 3: That's important you just said at the end of the
Speaker 3: tunnel and you know, it's not the train coming towards you.
Speaker 3: You know, how do you keep that positive view? Like,
Speaker 3: how did and did you ruggle to get to that position?
Speaker 3: Did you say, well, look, I'm better off taking the
Speaker 3: positive view, yep, because the other of you is pretty shitty.
Speaker 1: It doesn't get me anywhere. What was your process?
Speaker 2: So my first so, my first interaction when I first
Speaker 2: came over here at the Roosters was I got chucked
Speaker 2: into the Wanda sand Hills. And anyone that knows is
Speaker 2: Wanda sand Hills. They're pretty tough. Yeah, And back back
Speaker 2: in christ we didn't do much fitness, but you come
Speaker 2: over here in the system and it was all fitness.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Ricky was crazy. So they chucked us out at Wanda
Speaker 2: sand Hills. And to be honest with you, that was
Speaker 2: the worst day of my life. Like like during that period,
Speaker 2: I didn't even complete it. I ended up in the bush,
Speaker 2: lactated up, spewing up Ricky telling me to get up,
Speaker 2: you're soft. But for me, like, I went home that
Speaker 2: day very embarrassed. I knew what I had to work
Speaker 2: on the next morning, I rocked up to Wentworth Park
Speaker 2: at five am and put myself in the Fat Club
Speaker 2: because I knew it wasn't fair enough and I.
Speaker 1: Had just explained what the fat club was.
Speaker 2: So the fat club is basically a club where you
Speaker 2: go each morning when you back back in those days.
Speaker 2: They still do it now as skin folds, so you
Speaker 2: have to be under ninety ninety skinfolds. I think it's
Speaker 2: about seven different points on your body to see where
Speaker 2: your body fats at if.
Speaker 1: You don't meet those, especially in the preseason.
Speaker 2: Especially in the preseason, it's big on getting your nutrition right,
Speaker 2: your body right. So I got put in the fat club.
Speaker 2: Five am rower Ronnie Palmer taking that worst worst we
Speaker 2: do like nine hundred meters and three minutes on the roll.
Speaker 2: Anyone that knows the role, that's a bit of a
Speaker 2: tough gig. So we had to do about five six
Speaker 2: of them into the bike into that. So that was
Speaker 2: me growing up within over the night, like I put
Speaker 2: my hand up, I knew where I was going wrong
Speaker 2: and sort of put myself in a position where I
Speaker 2: was vulnerable but willing to take it on. And I
Speaker 2: just sort of grew from there and before I knew it,
Speaker 2: you know, I was starting number nine and a star
Speaker 2: started a jersey flig team and slowly building confidence as
Speaker 2: I went on. I think when I moved out of
Speaker 2: the Rooster's house and I kind of really found my independence,
Speaker 2: really lean on my support network, my mum back home
Speaker 2: should fly over then. Obviously my sister was living here
Speaker 2: at the same time, so I really leaned into her
Speaker 2: a lot as well. And then also my grandfather. He
Speaker 2: was a massive rock in my life. And you know,
Speaker 2: back then in New Zealand, the old cell phone, it
Speaker 2: was hard to get credit. Twenty dollars, got your twenty dollars,
Speaker 2: but you move up here to get forty nine dollars,
Speaker 2: it would get you two undred and fifty. So I
Speaker 2: was fit on the phone to them, so you know,
Speaker 2: they really helped me get through it. And I look
Speaker 2: back on it now. There was moments where a mum was,
Speaker 2: you know, moments away from booking a flight home. But
Speaker 2: I'm just so glad I stuck it out because I
Speaker 2: know if I'd gone home, it would have been the
Speaker 2: biggest recruit of my life.
Speaker 3: So it's interesting to talk about, and there is some
Speaker 3: significance around that fat squad because because a lot of
Speaker 3: really good players first grades get put in that squad
Speaker 3: if they come back from the preseason break or before
Speaker 3: the preseason, after the break from playing footing, if inevitably
Speaker 3: a lot of good weight on because they get on
Speaker 3: the beers and they haven't shit, and then I'm being
Speaker 3: managed and they don't have any obligation to train and
Speaker 3: end or play that they're literally taking a break. But
Speaker 3: a lot of big guys, especially when they're used to
Speaker 3: having a high metabolic rate as a result of training
Speaker 3: lots of ours every day, they wait on pretty simple.
Speaker 3: But there's a bit of a a little bit of
Speaker 3: a reputation issue being in the fat squad. There was
Speaker 3: you know, you're in a fat squad. That's the first thing.
Speaker 3: The second thing is Ronnie Palmer, the Bondai charmer who
Speaker 3: actually contacted me last week, funnily enough, who I used
Speaker 3: to train. So I used to train me and Ronnie
Speaker 3: and Sticky's training. When you park in the gym on
Speaker 3: the second level, yeah, we should train there together, three
Speaker 3: of us. And I just quickly say that Ricky would
Speaker 3: Everyone knows him as a bit of a sledge when
Speaker 3: he played. Ricky was a sledge in every thing he did,
Speaker 3: so he would we would turn off a train like
Speaker 3: two or three times a week. We'd start off on
Speaker 3: the row and I hate the fucking row. It's one
Speaker 3: of the worst machines that are, which is why I
Speaker 3: had one. And Ricky as soon as you would get there,
Speaker 3: he would start sledging me. He'd say, it is like
Speaker 3: twenty odd years ago. Twenty years ago, I guess. But
Speaker 3: he'd say, mate, what's happened to your your biceps?
Speaker 1: League? I only saw him.
Speaker 3: We go and he say, you haven't done any XO,
Speaker 3: no training, but you look really weak. He starts sledging me,
Speaker 3: and so the process. So Ronnie then would punish us,
Speaker 3: punish and Ronnie was like Ronnie's five or six years
Speaker 3: older than me. But Ronnie is fit as fit as
Speaker 3: any of the players in those days anyway, especially and
Speaker 3: he could lift, he could run, he could do everything
Speaker 3: what you guys could do. Great imagination too, and the
Speaker 3: nicest bloke in the world, in the world. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, you had to punish you or push
Speaker 3: you beyond your limits. And to be in the fat squad,
Speaker 3: to volunteer to go on the fat squad to get better,
Speaker 3: that's a big call because, as I said, there's a
Speaker 3: reputation issue around It looks like you've got no discipline,
Speaker 3: and so I want to ask you, either we either
Speaker 3: push ourselves or agree to be pushed by somebody else.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's a way of building mental resilience
Speaker 3: apart of physical resilience in footy, but the mental resilience
Speaker 3: just to equip you for business environments?
Speaker 2: Oh, I definitely, I think it's huge.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean then for you?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 3: Like, like, if someone else is listening to this, doesn't
Speaker 3: mean I should allow myself to be subjected to someone
Speaker 3: who's either a mentor or is not a mentor as
Speaker 3: just a family friend or in your case it's about footy,
Speaker 3: but allow them to push my to push me and
Speaker 3: never do I not challenge it? Do I say no,
Speaker 3: fuck you, I'm not doing that. How do you how
Speaker 3: do you become someone who allows themselves to sort of
Speaker 3: volunteer for this and sit back and cop a sweet
Speaker 3: and just do it what you've been told?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a great question. Again. I kind of felt
Speaker 2: myself just migrat into it naturally. I feel like it
Speaker 2: was kind of installed in me as a young kid
Speaker 2: from my mum.
Speaker 1: Does that mean, of course you've always been a compliant kid?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: I think, well, you're never naughty.
Speaker 2: I was very driven at a young age. You know,
Speaker 2: we go back to that conversation when the principals were
Speaker 2: telling me I had to I had to give up
Speaker 2: Ragua League, and at the age of thirteen, I went
Speaker 2: back to Mum and said, I'm not going to let
Speaker 2: them tell me what I can do in my life.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And does that mean being your rebellious or your complying
Speaker 3: to your objectives?
Speaker 2: I think it was just more mean being driven and
Speaker 2: having a goal of what I wanted and there's nothing
Speaker 2: that was going to stop me from getting there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so stop me there.
Speaker 3: So does that mean then in relation to what you do,
Speaker 3: because you've obviously carried those characteristics of resilience through into
Speaker 3: your business life, which were going to talk about.
Speaker 1: In the second half.
Speaker 3: But does that mean though that therefore, what allowed you
Speaker 3: to become resilient as a result of complying with what
Speaker 3: the fat Squad training environment was? Is that because you
Speaker 3: were driven or is that just because you just.
Speaker 1: Complied?
Speaker 2: What? Is it driven? Definitely driven? Driven, like like I
Speaker 2: wouldn't believe. I still surprised myself today how driven I am,
Speaker 2: And like I said before, like I really feel like
Speaker 2: that comes from the environment that's created as a kid.
Speaker 2: What is that, you know, like watching my mom, Like
Speaker 2: I didn't really get it when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: but seeing mom work three jobs to keep the lights on,
Speaker 2: to pay the rent, you know, like wondering, you know
Speaker 2: why she's up so early, wondering why I was at
Speaker 2: training forty minutes before everyone else. Because she was installing
Speaker 2: those things into me. She hated me being late. I
Speaker 2: was always there thirty minutes, thirty or forty minutes before,
Speaker 2: waiting in the car, kicking the ball around, just seeing
Speaker 2: her like she was a great netble player, like to
Speaker 2: the point where she could have played for the Silver Ferns,
Speaker 2: And she sacrificed to give up her dream for me
Speaker 2: to live my dream. And that was believing in me
Speaker 2: at such a young age, and she installed this like
Speaker 2: driving me that you know, I wanted to get out
Speaker 2: of christ Church. I didn't want to just be another number.
Speaker 2: I wanted to live my dream and show everyone else
Speaker 2: that you can tell me that I can't do something,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to go do it anyway, Like to
Speaker 2: the point where i'd be according to the principal's office
Speaker 2: and at high school and said, you know, you need
Speaker 2: to stop going on about this rugby league dream because
Speaker 2: it's not going to happen. Like you know, teachers actually
Speaker 2: telling me as opposed to encouraging me to live my dream.
Speaker 2: They were telling me to no, you can't do that,
Speaker 2: you can't like what are you doing? You didn't focus
Speaker 2: on academics. But I was never an academic kid. I
Speaker 2: couldn't concentrate in the classroom. I just wanted to play footy.
Speaker 2: I wanted to eat my lunch and back out and
Speaker 2: play footy again. And you know, to the point where
Speaker 2: you know, in one week, I had three meetings with
Speaker 2: three three teachers from different subjects, all telling me the
Speaker 2: same thing. You need to give up this rugby league
Speaker 2: dream because it's not for you. Do you know the
Speaker 2: percentage of people that play NRL and it just went
Speaker 2: in one year and out the other.
Speaker 3: So does that mean that as a business person in
Speaker 3: your lad of life, like someone who might be sort
Speaker 3: of dreaming to have it and be driven and be
Speaker 3: like completely completely obsessed without being about being successful in
Speaker 3: their business dream? Does that mean that no matter what happens,
Speaker 3: no matter what someone says. It's a it's a fuck
Speaker 3: you type moment. I'm going to do what I'm going
Speaker 3: to do. It doesn't matter even.
Speaker 1: If I fail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I like, my biggest mantra at the moment
Speaker 2: is I'd rather fail at something I want to do
Speaker 2: then I don't want to do. I can easily go
Speaker 2: and work on a building site. I could easily go
Speaker 2: be a cleaner, and I could fail at that, but
Speaker 2: that's not what I want to do. I'd rather go
Speaker 2: spend my time and invest it in myself and one
Speaker 2: of my passions. And if I failed, I found that list,
Speaker 2: I've given it a shot. That's just how my brain operates,
Speaker 2: and I'm slowly learning more about that as I go
Speaker 2: through business and learning behaviors from rugby league at a
Speaker 2: young age that I can carry from sport over to
Speaker 2: the business side.
Speaker 1: So let's just and just to close off the loops.
Speaker 3: So in terms of your regul argue career, so we
Speaker 3: ended up having to say you you didn't end up
Speaker 3: playing Grave for the Roos, you play for League for
Speaker 3: the Roosters.
Speaker 1: Where did you go after that? Where did you finish up?
Speaker 2: So I basically spin two years at the Roosters. Basically.
Speaker 2: I remember one night I'd had a good game and
Speaker 2: Sticky came out to me in the league's club. I
Speaker 2: said that we're going to resign you on Tuesday. I
Speaker 2: was working up at Rebel Rebel Sports East Garden at
Speaker 2: the time. And then I remember my boss at the
Speaker 2: time coming said to me on the Monday or Ricky
Speaker 2: actually has been fired. So for me, I was like, well,
Speaker 2: what's next? So I rang my manager.
Speaker 1: That was when we tried to employ Wayne Bennett.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was it, yeah, yeah, yeah. All I remember
Speaker 2: was him saying to me, you're gonna You're going to
Speaker 2: be resigned, And that whole weekend I was puffed out,
Speaker 2: my chest was out. I was thinking, great, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: been another time bit of time here. And then it
Speaker 2: fell through. Chris Anderson came in under there.
Speaker 3: I was the one because I was on the board
Speaker 3: at the time still, and I was the one who
Speaker 3: gave and O the job.
Speaker 1: I gave O the job because he was.
Speaker 3: His traian coach. Pri Ye did have a heart attack,
Speaker 3: but we did. We didn't have another coach because Bennett
Speaker 3: was going to coach YEP. And that's and recently, you know,
Speaker 3: we reviewed the book about this on our straight Talk podcast,
Speaker 3: and yeah, so we gave the job and with Freddie
Speaker 3: being this systant.
Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, yeah, so and then they decided not
Speaker 2: to Chris decided he wanted to part ways. I was
Speaker 2: only a young kid, and so I spent one winter
Speaker 2: for one year at the Tigers part time. So once
Speaker 2: again like having to learn to get through over hurdles again,
Speaker 2: like you know, I'd gone from being told I was
Speaker 2: going to be resigned that I didn't I wasn't wanted,
Speaker 2: then going to the West Tigers. At that time, it
Speaker 2: wasn't even Science so the West Tigers was Balmain Ride Tigers,
Speaker 2: so I was the next tier under And then having
Speaker 2: to go through that and still trying to believe in
Speaker 2: myself that there's a stream of NRL that I want
Speaker 2: to take in, but like there's the hurdles I have
Speaker 2: to go through that aren't going my way, Like just
Speaker 2: have to stick it out. So I went to the Tigers,
Speaker 2: took up a job at Classic Sports at the same time,
Speaker 2: so I was get up at five am in the morning,
Speaker 2: so I'd work from five am to three o'clock in
Speaker 2: the Arvo drive to likeaut train for four hours and
Speaker 2: then I would drive home. And I did that for
Speaker 2: a year and basically that was basically my last shot
Speaker 2: at it. And I towards the back end of the year,
Speaker 2: my manager rang me and he said, the Warriors are
Speaker 2: interested in you and obviously been been in New Zealand. Kid.
Speaker 2: You know when they came in the comp in ninety five,
Speaker 2: you know it was it changed everything for rgular League
Speaker 2: fans in New Zealand. And you know, to me, that
Speaker 2: was going home and you know, representing my country. It
Speaker 2: was my favorite team, and I thought to myself, why not,
Speaker 2: why not give a shot? It was minimal money. I
Speaker 2: had just done my foot at the time, so I
Speaker 2: list frank injury so it's like attendant ligament in your foot,
Speaker 2: which is like about a six month recovery. And so
Speaker 2: Ivan signed me. He'd only seen me play on a DVD.
Speaker 2: I was overweight at the time. Basically when went over
Speaker 2: to New Zealand, walked in the first day, I was
Speaker 2: one hundred and eight kilos overweight. I spoke to Craig Walker,
Speaker 2: was the Walks of the trainer at the time. Walked
Speaker 2: up to Walks in the office, introduced myself and they
Speaker 2: were still on about a three month period because that
Speaker 2: just the year before, in two thousand and eight, they'd
Speaker 2: gone to the Grand Final qualifier against Manly where the
Speaker 2: first week of the finals they bet that it was
Speaker 2: the old system where one played eight yeah, and they
Speaker 2: played the Storm and they bit them down at Olympic Park.
Speaker 2: So the boys are on an extended pre season and
Speaker 2: I went there to walk. So I said, I'm overweight,
Speaker 2: I got this frank injury. I'm in the gym tomorrow.
Speaker 2: And basically that off season taught myself how to walk
Speaker 2: against walk laps of the field, ran laps of the field,
Speaker 2: which was probably the best thing for me, because I
Speaker 2: was overweight from this injury. If I got put back
Speaker 2: into the full time squad straight away, even would have
Speaker 2: kicked me out because I would have been overweight, unfit.
Speaker 2: But because I was injured, allowing me to rehab back properly,
Speaker 2: and by the time I got back into full time training,
Speaker 2: I was fit as a fiddle. I dropped twelve kilos.
Speaker 2: I was ninety six down to ninety six playing hooker
Speaker 2: and basically was training at hooker. Weird fear bit of
Speaker 2: like depth in the hooker role. We'd obviously had Nathan
Speaker 2: Feene there, Ian Henderson was there and Hindo was there,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I was playing hooker and then we played it.
Speaker 2: We played a trial against the Cowboys and I remember
Speaker 2: I played a twenty minute quarter at hooker and then
Speaker 2: I even come up to me at halftime and he said,
Speaker 2: he said, mate, have you have played back row? Said,
Speaker 2: I never played in my life. And he said, you
Speaker 2: know Jonathan Thurston who was he was on the right
Speaker 2: hand side that game we're playing the Cowboys. He said,
Speaker 2: just try and rip his inside shoulder of I want
Speaker 2: you to run that line and as that's the main
Speaker 2: back rolls line to get inside your your your three
Speaker 2: man's inside shoulder. And fortunately that day Grant Ravelli, who
Speaker 2: was also a Rooster's junior, he was at the Warriors
Speaker 2: at the time, he put me through two holes and
Speaker 2: I scored a double at the back row. And that's
Speaker 2: when I became a back roll, a hybrid back roll.
Speaker 2: I was a little a little bit of a different
Speaker 2: shape to most back rolls, more in that Anthony watt
Speaker 2: Our mold, where I was a like lower center of
Speaker 2: gravity and had good leg drive. And that's how I
Speaker 2: became a back roller and I started my career of the.
Speaker 1: Warriors, and where did you finished career?
Speaker 2: So I finished my I ended up so played just
Speaker 2: under one hundred games for the Warriors. Then I followed
Speaker 2: Ivan over to Pinrith in twenty and thirteen. I spent
Speaker 2: four years there and then spent my last three years
Speaker 2: at Manly. Retired in two thousand and five years ago,
Speaker 2: so twenty and eighteen.
Speaker 3: So that regul league career was a I mean, apart
Speaker 3: from having played the sport you really loved and all
Speaker 3: that sort of childhood sort of dream blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Get all that part. That's it's pretty good. But really
Speaker 3: what happens from here is it equipped you to do something.
Speaker 3: And I am going to go to the break, and
Speaker 3: when I come back from the break, I want to
Speaker 3: talk it. I want you to talk to me about
Speaker 3: the earl's itch, the itch to set up a brand.
Speaker 1: I need to know about that.
Speaker 3: And I want to know what you learn from your
Speaker 3: years as rugby leagues. Sitting here on your own in Australia.
Speaker 3: What did you learn from those years that you've put
Speaker 3: into play in relation to your brand, your business brand?
Speaker 1: And then we're going to talk about some of the collaborations.
Speaker 3: You're doing, because I can see the assets thing right there,
Speaker 3: and that's driving me crazy.
Speaker 1: I've got to know about that. So let's go. The
Speaker 1: break comes straight back.
Speaker 3: We've just been taught with Louis about his footy life
Speaker 3: and some you might be thinking, well, you know what
Speaker 3: you is that really a mentor subject or is it
Speaker 3: more a straight talk subject. Well, I think it's really
Speaker 3: important because we're talking about mindset. For me, in mindset
Speaker 3: is a really important component of being successful as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 3: as a business owner, particularly you know when we get setbacks,
Speaker 3: and you get a lot of setbacks in footy, most
Speaker 3: people just think, oh wow, you know, they can pay
Speaker 3: you a load of money and doing.
Speaker 1: What they love.
Speaker 3: That's assuming that they are Jonathan Thurston or something like that,
Speaker 3: who's like extraordinarily gift it and gets the right pathway,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't always happen. And you know, ninety nine
Speaker 3: out of one hundred players don't experience that, and it's
Speaker 3: one in one hundred, maybe even less. And Louis probably
Speaker 3: one of those ones who he had a good career,
Speaker 3: but he wasn't someone who just automatically jumped into first
Speaker 3: grade at the age of nineteen. And you know what
Speaker 3: didn't become wasn't Mitchell Pierce played his whole career playing
Speaker 3: first grade type of thing. And you have to build
Speaker 3: a certain mindset and a certain resilience to get through
Speaker 3: that shit. And what I want to talk to Lewis
Speaker 3: about now is Louis like, tell me what was that,
Speaker 3: because you know he had his urge or as a
Speaker 3: kid to play rugby league. When des urge to create
Speaker 3: a brand start to sort of get into your bones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's man, that's probably that's probably the tuning put
Speaker 2: in my life, that question. It was. I remember, so
Speaker 2: I had spent nearly ten years playing inn RL, so
Speaker 2: I played one hundred and ninety nine games, didn't quite
Speaker 2: get the two hundred, played fifteen tests for for the
Speaker 2: Kiwis and twenty and sixteen I was over in the
Speaker 2: UK playing in the Four Nations David Kidwell's coach at
Speaker 2: the time, and we're about to play. We just played,
Speaker 2: We just plaid the Kangaroos at Anfield, Liverpool's home ground
Speaker 2: in the Four Nations final. Got absolutely pumped. I think
Speaker 2: it was like thirty six four that had a great team,
Speaker 2: like you know, Thurston, cam Smith, Kronk Gregg Yinglis Morris brothers,
Speaker 2: you know, great back rowers, you know. It was it
Speaker 2: was a fear squad that they had had put against
Speaker 2: us and put a fear scoring us. And I remember
Speaker 2: sitting at the bar going back to the hotel, sitting
Speaker 2: at the bar with Sean Johnson and his partner and
Speaker 2: a phone. A phone call come through from my sister
Speaker 2: and her been a regul league. Found thought she wanted
Speaker 2: to speak about the game, and I left it, didn't
Speaker 2: answer it because I wasn't really in the mood to
Speaker 2: speak about rugby league at the time, and it was
Speaker 2: the end of the year and it's enjoying having a
Speaker 2: sparkling water and a red wine at the bar. And
Speaker 2: then she ran me back straight away and I knew
Speaker 2: something was up. Answered the call and I said, hey,
Speaker 2: what's hey Mendes, so that's my sister's name's what's happened?
Speaker 2: She's like his dad And I was like, well, what's happened?
Speaker 2: And she's like, oh, he's taken his own life, his dad,
Speaker 2: he's committed suicide.
Speaker 1: And your biological father, yeah, my.
Speaker 2: Biological father who I hadn't spoken til spoken to since
Speaker 2: I was twenty one, I was now thirty at the time,
Speaker 2: sat there and just broke down in tears, like I
Speaker 2: didn't even know what it was.
Speaker 1: It was just like a shock for start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know my dad, My dad was a
Speaker 2: good guy, but it was just a useless father. And
Speaker 2: you know, I kind of carried this chip on my
Speaker 2: shoulder as a young kid, like like you kind of
Speaker 2: mumba lamas, but you kind of fucked my childhood. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, you've thrown the spanner in the works, and
Speaker 2: you're fucking fuck with me in my adulthood as well,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So I sat there and
Speaker 2: I had all this these these thoughts going through my head,
Speaker 2: and you know, I had I had to break the
Speaker 2: news to someone else, and I told Sean and I
Speaker 2: had to go up to my room, and then before
Speaker 2: I knew it, the whole squad was in my room.
Speaker 2: David Kibwell, included the managers, everyone, and everyone was just
Speaker 2: there kind of helping me out, and and I hopped
Speaker 2: on that we were the logistics out so I could
Speaker 2: get back to christ Itch for the funeral. And so
Speaker 2: I got back to Krash Church through this whole next
Speaker 2: two days of traveling from London to christ Church so
Speaker 2: much thoughts were going through my head. I was about
Speaker 2: to go back home to a family that's part of
Speaker 2: me that I haven't seen for nearly twenty odd years,
Speaker 2: and that was a bit of a mine, a mine
Speaker 2: mind fuck within itself. And so anyway, I get myself,
Speaker 2: me and my sister at our self prepared for the
Speaker 2: funeral and walking to the funeral and here's my half
Speaker 2: brother who's basically four or five years younger than me,
Speaker 2: looks like my twin, and I haven't seen him since
Speaker 2: I'm seven. So that's my first shock. See obviously, see
Speaker 2: my dad, and you know, see my aunties who I
Speaker 2: haven't seen since I was a young kid. And I'm
Speaker 2: basically four with a room full of strangers. But there's
Speaker 2: this part, there's there's this still part of me that's
Speaker 2: in this room. And throughout the day, as I went
Speaker 2: from the funeral to my dad's grave site, I actually
Speaker 2: found out my dad, my grandfather, and my great grandfather
Speaker 2: had all taken their own lives.
Speaker 1: Wow, and on your dad's side.
Speaker 2: On my dad's side. Yeah, And the only thing that
Speaker 2: we share in common is the same middle name, and
Speaker 2: that's Earl. And as a young kid, I used to
Speaker 2: hate that middle name.
Speaker 3: All of you had the same middle name, great grandfather, grandfather, dad,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 2: And me and I found that out dream that day
Speaker 2: and as a kid the middle name. I don't know
Speaker 2: whether it was just to do with the association with
Speaker 2: my dad because I thought he was useless as a kid.
Speaker 2: Like when I was a kid, I hated the middle name.
Speaker 2: I felt like it gave me bad energy. And whenever
Speaker 2: someone would ask me, what's your middle name, I would
Speaker 2: say I don't have one. I'd always go like, I
Speaker 2: don't have one. And basically that was the turning point
Speaker 2: of my life. I continue to play rugby league for
Speaker 2: the next two years, but I felt like my job
Speaker 2: when I felt like my dream was starting to turn
Speaker 2: into a job. And I believe when your dream starts
Speaker 2: to turn into a job, it's time to walk away.
Speaker 2: That's that's the sport, that's life. That's the universe tapping
Speaker 2: on your shoulder saying hey, like you need to go
Speaker 2: find something else and.
Speaker 1: Tap out, tap out.
Speaker 2: And you know, when I was a kid, when I'd
Speaker 2: hang out with my dad, he was real stylish kind
Speaker 2: of dude, had a great, great the way he dressed
Speaker 2: did great dress sense. He you know, wore Levi as
Speaker 2: with the Chuck Taylor's had the the jacket, the Harley Davison,
Speaker 2: whereas all my mate's friends they would wear the track
Speaker 2: the footy tracksuits and stuff like that. So I used
Speaker 2: to be quite embarrassed by the way my dad dressed,
Speaker 2: but he was quite hip. So I guess that's where
Speaker 2: it sort of came into.
Speaker 1: The other days, the dreams with the belt exactly too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly, tucked off the polar Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I look exactly to exactly. And so I'd sort of
Speaker 2: come to this point in my life where I was
Speaker 2: about to leave Manly. I've been offered a three year
Speaker 2: deal to go to Purpayong to play the cat Lands
Speaker 2: over in the south of France. I was meant to
Speaker 2: leave on the Friday. On the Wednesday, I decided I'd retire.
Speaker 2: I just felt like I couldn't take over this because
Speaker 2: I had two years to kind of digest what had
Speaker 2: gone on, and my form had kind of fallen off.
Speaker 2: The back to the Woods the back end of the
Speaker 2: year my back into the crew, so I knew it
Speaker 2: was just time to let go what year we're doing
Speaker 2: Man twenty seventeen eighteen. Yeah, so towards the back end
Speaker 2: of then, and I thought to myself, like, listen, there's
Speaker 2: a great tune to go to France and just kind
Speaker 2: of finish off your career as a working holidays.
Speaker 1: I think SKD was there, he was.
Speaker 2: A few of the boys there. Percy would have been
Speaker 2: there filling up. So I think there's a few kind
Speaker 2: of boys there. But deep down inside me, there was
Speaker 2: just something that was holding me back, and I felt
Speaker 2: like taking that with me, the suicide over there to
Speaker 2: a non speaking English country, trying to get therapy. And
Speaker 2: then also outside of regular league, my hobby was fashion
Speaker 2: and love sneakers, love clothing, and I sawt of I
Speaker 2: saw a niche kind of movement in the market where
Speaker 2: you know, I've I've lived one dream and once you've
Speaker 2: lived your dream and you've broken through that like dream atmosphere,
Speaker 2: and you kind of I don't know what it is,
Speaker 2: but you feel like you can do anything. If you
Speaker 2: really want to do something, you'll go and do it.
Speaker 2: And like I said before, like I'd rather foul out
Speaker 2: something I want to do than I don't want to do.
Speaker 2: So retired on the Wednesday. On the Monday, I started
Speaker 2: up Earls at the same time parallel with getting a
Speaker 2: job at SkyTV. So sky TV is over here at
Speaker 2: Fox Sports in New Zealand at Sky Sports, so I
Speaker 2: was gone back every Wednesday and I was doing all
Speaker 2: the Warriors home games. I was commentary and reporting and
Speaker 2: started up Earl's.
Speaker 1: But what was it was going to be?
Speaker 3: Like, Like, I get the brand, I understand with the
Speaker 3: name camera, but what was your Like what excus were
Speaker 3: we going to be running with?
Speaker 1: What do you well?
Speaker 2: I basically, I basically the reason I came to clothing
Speaker 2: is because that was my passion. The name. I remember.
Speaker 2: I was up on College Street in Sydney, just by
Speaker 2: Hyde Park and I pulled over the side of the
Speaker 2: road and I was like, I'm going to start this
Speaker 2: thing called Earl's Collection because basically I didn't have a
Speaker 2: relationship with my dad, you know, through my adulthood, and
Speaker 2: I always thought i'd have a I would have an
Speaker 2: adult conversation with him and let bygones be by gones,
Speaker 2: build a bridge and we can both move on and
Speaker 2: just live life, you know what I mean, and find
Speaker 2: out about his childhood. But for obvious reasons that didn't
Speaker 2: get to happen. So I thought I would honor him
Speaker 2: and take this negative, this real negative cloud of this
Speaker 2: name and try and turn it into something positive. So
Speaker 2: I had named it Earl's Collection. And I was sick
Speaker 2: of buying other people's clothing. It's beending lots of money
Speaker 2: on high end clothing. When I felt the quality and
Speaker 2: basically felt like I could create that myself. So reached
Speaker 2: out to a mate who put me in touch with
Speaker 2: a production company in China, and you know, within six months,
Speaker 2: I'd launched a fourteen piece collection and I was on
Speaker 2: my journey to start with Earl's collection.
Speaker 3: Just take me through a good forward in piece collection.
Speaker 3: So what are we talking about?
Speaker 1: Tea's strides?
Speaker 2: So we started with Tea's teas these basketball shorts which
Speaker 2: became a craze.
Speaker 1: And can you describe those?
Speaker 2: So basketball short?
Speaker 1: I know what a basket, but you're.
Speaker 2: So basically we had these they called the Earl Short
Speaker 2: basically just a nice premium bit of polyestamesh with Earl's
Speaker 2: kind of applicate across the front and would change the
Speaker 2: colors out. And it got to the point mark where
Speaker 2: you know, like we're doing like twelve hundred peers in
Speaker 2: three minutes. I put them up online and they just disappear.
Speaker 1: And how did everyone know about it?
Speaker 2: Well, just like I guess, the first fan, my first
Speaker 2: customer base and the brand of winness I got was
Speaker 2: that Rugby League fan. So basically, at the time, the
Speaker 2: people that followed me through Rugby League were going to
Speaker 2: come on.
Speaker 1: This journey with me with where they're following you.
Speaker 2: Although I followed me from New Zealand that we don't
Speaker 2: know what platform Facebook, Instagram, Facebook, you know, Twitter, stuff
Speaker 2: like that, and then we had no marketing or anything.
Speaker 2: I knew nothing. I absolutely knew nothing. I knew nothing
Speaker 2: about clothing. All I knew was I had a good
Speaker 2: I felt like I had a good eye, and I
Speaker 2: was going to teach myself how to use Photoshop illustrator
Speaker 2: and learned to design a fourteen piece collection and put
Speaker 2: it together shoot it. I shot my first shoot up
Speaker 2: in China Gwon Joe just randomly happened. I was going
Speaker 2: up there check check the factories, and then yeah, I
Speaker 2: just thought, let's just give this a go.
Speaker 1: So shorts, T shirts, what else?
Speaker 2: Switch shirts, hoodies, socks, hats, So start off with that
Speaker 2: so just a small range bit of forty people.
Speaker 4: Nearly accessories as well, exactly, and I usually just stop me,
Speaker 4: but did you have you must have had a fairly
Speaker 4: big a reasonable audience from me forty days.
Speaker 2: So yeah, not too bad. I wouldn't say the biggest,
Speaker 2: the biggest following, but a lot of people knew, like
Speaker 2: outside of Rguy League, they're eighty minutes. I loved clothing.
Speaker 2: I love sneakers, and I'd always like take photos of
Speaker 2: fits and that that I put up on my Instagram.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm from the era of like living
Speaker 2: my adulthood with no social media. Then also this thing
Speaker 2: coming through with social media and you're getting used to it,
Speaker 2: you know. I'd go to like Warriors functions and I'll
Speaker 2: wear Cardigan and Ivan Claire. He would always come up to
Speaker 2: me with a smile on his face, saying, fuck, what's
Speaker 2: what are you wearing there? Mate? That's fucking terrible? Do
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? But I always true to
Speaker 2: who I was, and that's what he loved about me
Speaker 2: the most. And we'd go on footy trips and all
Speaker 2: the boys would hassle me about wearing you know, like
Speaker 2: Cardigan's tight jeans, and all, you know, all the craze,
Speaker 2: and then they'd get me one on one they'd be like, hey, Louis,
Speaker 2: can you take me shopping? My missus ask if I
Speaker 2: could dress a little bit like you're a little bit more.
Speaker 2: So I'll start to see the boys sort of accept
Speaker 2: me for who I was. And you know, I just
Speaker 2: thought to myself, it's just still a fourteen piece collection.
Speaker 2: See how it goes? Dropped it and it sold out
Speaker 2: pretty much within a month.
Speaker 1: So where do you take it from there?
Speaker 3: So you know, like Earl's collection is obviously successful first tub,
Speaker 3: but what is it doing now?
Speaker 2: Well, now now we're five years in, we're sixteen collections deep.
Speaker 2: We've done a few collabs now which have been crazy.
Speaker 2: For example, start off with new era hats, so as
Speaker 2: a kid, I wore a new era hat. And then
Speaker 2: next it went to Cassio G Shock. So as a kid,
Speaker 2: my grandfather, all my uncles were g Shocks, So for me,
Speaker 2: I wasn't raised around Rolex or anything. G shock to
Speaker 2: me exactly, and that's still pretty cool now. So I
Speaker 2: started off doing the two co labs with them, and
Speaker 2: can ijust you approach them with they approach you now
Speaker 2: so all of my collabs, I've I'm the type of
Speaker 2: person at the moment where I feel like I have
Speaker 2: a little bit of imposter syndrome. So I'm in this,
Speaker 2: I'm in this like career that I'm so new at
Speaker 2: but I feel like I'm good at. But I also
Speaker 2: feel like I kind of don't belong at the moment.
Speaker 2: So I never reached out to anyone. I'm quite shy
Speaker 2: kind of person, so everyone sort of reached out to
Speaker 2: us just you know, this new brand and obviously the
Speaker 2: profile of Regula League and stuff like that, and that
Speaker 2: helped build as well while I was working on Sky Sports.
Speaker 2: And then probably the biggest co lab that's at at
Speaker 2: the moment that came across our desk on my desk
Speaker 2: came up two years ago, sorry a year and a
Speaker 2: half ago, and that was with Essex.
Speaker 1: And what is that That's a sure obviously, but what
Speaker 1: we're talking about.
Speaker 2: So basically i'll give you a little story about it.
Speaker 2: So mentioned before, my grandfather m your father's side of
Speaker 2: the mother side, my mom's side. Yeah, so look after Yeah,
Speaker 2: so he's basically my dad, He's my hero. He was everything.
Speaker 2: So he'd never been on a plane, before. Sorry. The
Speaker 2: only plane he had caught was when he was eighteen.
Speaker 2: He'd gone from the chatter Mylins to christ Church. His
Speaker 2: parents said, go live in the mainland, make money. Do
Speaker 2: we have to raise your family. Only plane he had
Speaker 2: ever been on two thousand and nine, he hopped on
Speaker 2: another plane to come and watch him play for the Warriors.
Speaker 2: The first time we've been on a plane. And I
Speaker 2: think it was nearly forty years and Mum rings me
Speaker 2: and she said, oh, it's Pop. He's had a foot
Speaker 2: he's had a fall at the airport. And I was like, oh, okay, sweet,
Speaker 2: no worry. So he gets to my house. He's limping around.
Speaker 2: He's got cuts all through his back and he said,
Speaker 2: I was something wrong with my bloody calf. So I
Speaker 2: said to my hop on the couch, I feel it.
Speaker 2: He's torn as achilles. He's torn as achilles. Anyway, I've
Speaker 2: gone on the game. I look. I didn't think they
Speaker 2: were going to make it. I've looked up here he's
Speaker 2: rolling on this on this in this wheelchair. And ever
Speaker 2: since that day, for the next fifteen years, every Birthday,
Speaker 2: every Christmas, every Father's Day, I brought him a Peer
Speaker 2: of Essex because Asex have an eight millimeter hell raised
Speaker 2: in the back, more cushion for his calfs than that
Speaker 2: a year and a half ago. And they've got good
Speaker 2: structure too, great, great structure, best running shoe and you know,
Speaker 2: great for him. They look good as well. Oh they
Speaker 2: look great, mate.
Speaker 1: These are the best for me for walking?
Speaker 2: Are they're the Pegasus?
Speaker 1: No, they're the Pegasus. But for running yep ac great.
Speaker 2: Counters are great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I sometimes I were the counters. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: sorry about that audience.
Speaker 2: You're good, mate, You're good. And a year and a
Speaker 2: half ago, unfortunately I lost my grandfather. He died at
Speaker 2: the age of ninety two, and I went home for
Speaker 2: the for his funeral, and the day after he passed away,
Speaker 2: I got an email from Essex Wow, Essex Australia saying
Speaker 2: they had no idea about anything like what was going
Speaker 2: on in my life, and they said to me, can
Speaker 2: you can you come to our Marsden Park office for
Speaker 2: a meeting? And I was like, listen, I'm my way
Speaker 2: at the moment for my grandfather's funeral, but I can
Speaker 2: come when I get out and get back to Australia.
Speaker 2: So I thought that that process was just going to be.
Speaker 2: They're going to give me stuff to wear. My photo
Speaker 2: shoots went out there for sponsorship for something years, like
Speaker 2: a sponsorship. So I'd been an Essex athlete before while
Speaker 2: I was playing footy. So I went out there and
Speaker 2: they basically said, sat me down. They said we want
Speaker 2: to we want to do a co lab with you
Speaker 2: on your shoe. And I got got goosebumps, like I
Speaker 2: was just like, this is meant to be. And you know,
Speaker 2: for the next year and a half we really worked
Speaker 2: on a shoe. I designed it in a week with
Speaker 2: my colleague Lachlin and within a week we designed the
Speaker 2: shoe about my MOLDI heritage back in christ Church and year.
Speaker 2: At the moment we just released it and it's gone crazy, biggest,
Speaker 2: biggest collab I've ever done. We're the only second Australian
Speaker 2: brand to ever do a co lab behind with Assex
Speaker 2: behind Paw and yeah we put it, we raffled it
Speaker 2: and within five hours it's sold out.
Speaker 3: Wow, five hours five hours, So Assids will probably do
Speaker 3: another one they roll it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've already asked me to come on for part
Speaker 2: two and they've also they've also helped me I'm going
Speaker 2: to help them out with their football side of things,
Speaker 2: footy boots side, so you know, for the rest of
Speaker 2: the year we're working closely with them with you know,
Speaker 2: the design and working on co lab too, and then
Speaker 2: also you know the footy book footy boot design. So
Speaker 2: very very full circle thing for me with the ASEX.
Speaker 1: You've gone from being a footy player.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have to wrap here, but I just want
Speaker 3: to You've gone from being a footy player, which is
Speaker 3: really physical and I mean there's a lot of mental
Speaker 3: stuff involved, but there's a lot of physicality involved in
Speaker 3: like and skills, skills on the field, but they're really
Speaker 3: fairly binary. Like you either you take with miss a
Speaker 3: tackle or you make a break or you don't make
Speaker 3: a break. It's sort of one or the other. To
Speaker 3: becoming a creative yeah, so you're basically creative now creative business,
Speaker 3: but you're creative crass, you're creating shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then I'm about to on Monday, Monday week,
Speaker 2: I'm going back to New Zealand actually about to be
Speaker 2: announced as the Warriors creative director.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, so that's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So once again a full circle thing. Get to
Speaker 2: go back home work with them, take over order the
Speaker 2: design for the jerseys off field stuff, training gear, and
Speaker 2: then also help out Jerry Seius who with wellness and
Speaker 2: teaching the boys about transition, you know, teacher. I think
Speaker 2: that's the coolest part about that job has been able
Speaker 2: to go back and showing the young generation that you
Speaker 2: can come back to the sport other than coaching and training,
Speaker 2: you can come back in a creative way. So to
Speaker 2: be able to take over the creative direction of the
Speaker 2: Warriors as an absolute dream come true. So a lot
Speaker 2: of these colebs that I'm doing, and you know, freelance
Speaker 2: stuff all being full circle stuff, and it's sort of
Speaker 2: just the energies that came to me. And when the Warriors,
Speaker 2: when they approached me, it was just a no brain
Speaker 2: because you know, I'm still transitioning from regular league to
Speaker 2: normal life and I go to therapy once a week
Speaker 2: and I'm learning how to detach myself from the sport
Speaker 2: in a good way, but then also transitioning to what
Speaker 2: is my purpose now as a creative and sort of
Speaker 2: diving into my brain of how I become more creative
Speaker 2: and you know, how do I channel that creativity that
Speaker 2: I've held them for nearly thirty three years. I didn't
Speaker 2: think I was a creative person. But sorry, I knew
Speaker 2: I was a creative person, but I didn't know how
Speaker 2: to channel it. I used to channel it and the
Speaker 2: way used to dress, but now a channel it and
Speaker 2: the way I make clothes and also push the finishing
Speaker 2: touches on, you know, something like the Warriors the jerseys
Speaker 2: in the next two years.
Speaker 3: Well, Lewis Man, it is actually a real pleasure to
Speaker 3: hear your story.
Speaker 1: But probably what I'm getting.
Speaker 3: From all is something I'll just if I could just
Speaker 3: articulate it for a moment. What's really important. It's not
Speaker 3: only you sort of you know, hunkering down on your
Speaker 3: creative ability, and you have an ability to create things
Speaker 3: and design things that make things look good or deliver
Speaker 3: things that look good. But probably where the next stage
Speaker 3: of your life is going to be is actually paying
Speaker 3: forward the luck that you've had, and whether it's luck
Speaker 3: or or a combination of you know, destiny or effort
Speaker 3: as well. But like you helping out and or even
Speaker 3: coming on this show today to talk to me about
Speaker 3: and to talk to an audience more importantly about forty
Speaker 3: people just don't have to be footy people. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: you know that you can identify yourself as a footballer
Speaker 3: when you're playing football, perhaps, but there's a process of
Speaker 3: de identifying yourself. It's nearly like a brain issue, is
Speaker 3: nearly like a change in the way your neurology works.
Speaker 3: I've got to transition myself out as identifying myself as
Speaker 3: a footballer. Now I'm identifying saying myself as a creative.
Speaker 3: But at some stage probably going to start to identifying
Speaker 3: yourself as someone's got to pay forward what you've learned,
Speaker 3: and that's being at the Warriors.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things you're going to be able
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 3: And some people I said, oh, he's lucky, was some
Speaker 3: sort of divine into venture by his grandparents, his grandfather,
Speaker 3: et cetera. No, No, I don't think so. I think
Speaker 3: it's just been open to things happening. Just be open
Speaker 3: to shit and be prepared to do it for sure.
Speaker 2: And like you know, the last year, I've been on
Speaker 2: a massive journey mark like lost my grandfather. One of
Speaker 2: my one of my good friends who worked at Earl's,
Speaker 2: she got murdered. Her and her dad got murdered in
Speaker 2: Auckland and then went through a massive relationship breakup and
Speaker 2: I really really had rock bottom around January this year
Speaker 2: and sorry two thousand and three, and just thought to myself, like,
Speaker 2: you know, you can either the single swim and my
Speaker 2: whole life. I've swam, I've never sunk, and that's the
Speaker 2: drive I just have in me. And I picked myself
Speaker 2: up up of the ground and realized, is that the
Speaker 2: root of the core that I was going through was
Speaker 2: that reidentify like reidentifying Hawaii, and what my purpose is.
Speaker 1: It's your issue my exactly. It's not the factor lost somebody.
Speaker 1: It's your issue.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and deal with it exactly. And then I started
Speaker 2: going to therapy once a week, turn that to twice
Speaker 2: a week, and I'm learning to change my behaviors from
Speaker 2: rugby league. The vocabulary that you're spoken to in rugby league,
Speaker 2: you know, you know as as a thirty year old,
Speaker 2: you know you're getting told you're old and you're a
Speaker 2: veteran and you're you're about to retire. Those words like
Speaker 2: they stick with you, you know, because within five years you're
Speaker 2: going to transition meetings. You're being told this is what
Speaker 2: football looks like, our life looks after football, and like
Speaker 2: you said before, like when when you retire as a
Speaker 2: sports person in general, it's about having that purpose. And
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of us on this planet,
Speaker 2: as at X athletes, feel like we're just being solely
Speaker 2: put on this earth to play sport. But you know,
Speaker 2: some of us that have kids. I don't have any kids,
Speaker 2: but the boys that have kids have that purpose of
Speaker 2: being a dad. You know, My purpose now in life
Speaker 2: is about creating a life that I'm happy about living.
Speaker 2: And you know, like you said, teaching others that you
Speaker 2: can have a happy life and you can make your
Speaker 2: career bigger after footy than it was and footy and
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm doing that at the moment.
Speaker 1: No, I think that's for me anyway is really important.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I was, I was. I woke up every
Speaker 1: let morning.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about these sort of things about just
Speaker 3: generally about the transitions you have in life. Look at
Speaker 3: my age expects people on me to be retired, and
Speaker 3: I think it's bullshit, Like I've got so much more
Speaker 3: energy and so much more to give. And my mind's
Speaker 3: about like minds of particular project like and you know,
Speaker 3: some people, my thing is a transaction, but I'm not
Speaker 3: really looking to do a transaction.
Speaker 1: I'm actually looking to help people and to live a.
Speaker 3: Better life, a healthier life, a longer life, A longer,
Speaker 3: healthier life is probably my big passion, and that's something
Speaker 3: I feel as I should do. I should do it
Speaker 3: for myself, but should everybody else. And I'm lucky enough
Speaker 3: to be able to do it. You're doing what you're
Speaker 3: doing at the Warriors at the moment, and for me,
Speaker 3: I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to.
Speaker 3: Earmark myself as being a finance guy in my whole life,
Speaker 3: which it wasn't what it was. You don't want to
Speaker 3: be a footed person all your life. Open the possibilities
Speaker 3: and just be prepared to go on the adventure and
Speaker 3: explore them and fuck up, makes misstakes, lean on people
Speaker 3: for help, Come and tell your story. See a therapist.
Speaker 3: Nothing wrong with that. Man as SATA therapist is not
Speaker 3: a needty thing of mental health thing. It's actually like
Speaker 3: it's like a process of learning.
Speaker 2: It's my favorite time of the week learning about yourself
Speaker 2: and you're getting better. Thursday, at four o'clock every week,
Speaker 2: I go into Willara and close the door for an
Speaker 2: hour and a half of my therapist and speak what
Speaker 2: I need to speak about, and I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: I come out so much lighter, like I don't carry
Speaker 2: the burden that I carry that week. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: still learning about business, you know, like I I'm only
Speaker 2: five years into this journey of earls and you know
Speaker 2: I have this saying that I don't have a ceiling,
Speaker 2: like you know, the only thing holding me back from
Speaker 2: doing things is me. You know how far I want
Speaker 2: to go with this, you know, this asset that I've
Speaker 2: got on now, like I've dreamt about, Like there's a
Speaker 2: store called Kith and the US that's I've always wanted
Speaker 2: to be stocked in and I've picked up the shoe
Speaker 2: they're about to stock it in there, and you know,
Speaker 2: just just small things like that, that that once again
Speaker 2: people telling me I can't do something and then I
Speaker 2: go and do it, like just about proving yourself right
Speaker 2: and you know, being selfish along the way. And you
Speaker 2: got to be exactly because for a long long time,
Speaker 2: like my whole life, I put rugby league first. You know,
Speaker 2: I missed best mates's weddings to be the best man
Speaker 2: that I miss my best mates, like kids being born
Speaker 2: and now It's about giving back to myself and making
Speaker 2: myself happy and being flexible to take myself out of
Speaker 2: a controlled environment where forty eight weeks of the year
Speaker 2: are basically bunk it down for me. Already, I've got
Speaker 2: four weeks that I can be flexible. Now I have
Speaker 2: fifty two weeks that I'm flexible, and I like to
Speaker 2: I like to be flexed with my work. I like
Speaker 2: to be flexed with my employees. I like to also
Speaker 2: encourage my employees to follow their hobbies too. You know
Speaker 2: the Lachlan who works for me, how we actually met.
Speaker 2: His passion is to change actually rugby league jerseys. So
Speaker 2: two and a half years ago I saw him on Instagram,
Speaker 2: this young kid. He's a Knights fan. He changes rugby
Speaker 2: league jerseys for a hobby, and that's how we connected.
Speaker 2: I saw him on Instagram. I gave him a brief,
Speaker 2: he sent it back to me, and then he come
Speaker 2: and spend a week with me. He's been with me
Speaker 2: since and now both of us have this hobby. Of
Speaker 2: his hobby is rugby league and rugby league uniforms. My
Speaker 2: old hobby was rugby league and now we're joining on
Speaker 2: this journey together to go do this warriors creative direction
Speaker 2: and you know, live it together. And I can't think
Speaker 2: of a more kind of special way to kind of
Speaker 2: do that with someone and spread our wings and see
Speaker 2: how far we can really take ourselves. And you know,
Speaker 2: as I played in an era of rugby league when
Speaker 2: you weren't encouraged to do his stuff outside of rugby league,
Speaker 2: was fully focused and I understand that was the era
Speaker 2: and at that time that's all you knew. So to
Speaker 2: be able to go and you know now and explore
Speaker 2: these different avenues of creativity, There's so many ways to
Speaker 2: be creative. I'm just really loving it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Lewis Earl Brown, congratulations made on Earl's collective
Speaker 3: and well done and keep those coilabs going and make
Speaker 3: us rogby league community proud of you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me Mark. I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed it