Ben John: Building Community And Skill In Online Rugby

Hey, team Ben here. Before we get into today's episode, I want to acknowledge a team that's

back in the show, back in me and the show. And that's Silver Fern. Now, I checked the Silver Fern

team regularly and they live in breath coaching. The equipment is awesome. The thing that I really

enjoy about Silver Fern is that they're all about innovation. They love rugby and they're building

tools. You don't see anywhere else to make coaching easier and better. State-of-the-art

scrub machines, portable line-up machines, strategy maps, tackling tools to name just a few.

They genuinely enjoy coming up with gear that helps coaches coach. And as we talk about all the time

on the show, when coaching improves, players improve. And when that happens, teams grow. And that's

what we're all about. Silver Fern are helping provide the tools to make that happen. If you're

looking for a one-stop shop for great gear and innovative tools from people who genuinely care

about people and performance, jump on to SilverFoonSports.com. Or you can just reach out to me

directly and I will make a personal introduction to you and the team on with the show.

We are community beings. We want to be a part of somebody. We want to belong to something. And

I think that is even more important online. Building the habit is the hard part. The goal of what

skill you practice is the easy part. It has to be educational. It has to be entertaining. And it

has to be my personality. Everything is perfect on social media. Everything we post is perfect.

Everyone's life is perfect. I don't want you to send me a perfect shot. I want you to send me

three minutes of your session. So I can see them making mistakes. People forget that's the

best way to learn is making those mistakes. Welcome to coaching culture. The podcast about

cultivating culture and leadership. I've been hearing and I've been loving the side of the gang

for bloody ages. Today's guest is Ben John. Now Ben is an ex pro player for Osprey's and

Wales who played 79 games at Centre. These days he is the world's biggest online coach,

Ben John aka the rugby trainer with a massive following on social media who love the awesome

content he puts out. Rugby coach, content creator, YouTuber with an Instagram tagline that says

inspiring you to pick up a rugby ball daily. Ben is leaving a coaching footprint on the world

that will last a lifetime and longer. Ben John, welcome to the coaching culture podcast.

Yes, mate. Thanks for having me. Good intro, hopefully. Great intro. Yeah, thank you. Yeah,

it's a shock to be on here. Really, really grateful. You asked me about some incredible coaches

on here. So yeah, just massive privilege to be on here, man. And you're doing so well as well. So

yeah, big up to you as well. Amazing. Ben, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to have such good

people on the show and it's cool to have you because it's like we were just talking earlier about

that movie Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which you haven't seen but I have and there's a scene

in there where they're playing hologram tennis the way of the future, coaching of the future with

modern tech and you're at the forefront of this online coaching and nailing it and getting a huge

huge whatever you call that landslider people enjoying what you do. So mate, let's just before we

begin, how did it start? How did the rugby trainer start?

Lockdown. So starting it, I think a lot of people, a lot of these things starting locked on there

because you got time to think. Yeah, and I was a head coach of a gym at the time. So everything

moved online because obviously we couldn't go to the gym. So I had a spare time and I just thought

to myself, if I was a kid, I would not be doing press ups, sit ups in the house. I'd be playing with

the rugby ball. I'll be throwing the ball around and annoying my mum and dad, maybe doing some sort

of tackling drill, my brother, what not. So I just thought it's a cool opportunity to do some skills

for kids to follow. Do this, get the ball around your back, do these passing drills, what not. And

at the times while all the pro players weren't training either. So I reached out to some of

the Welsh lads and just said, do you want to jump on a live Zoom? Because that's what the fitness

world was doing. They were jumping on Zoom and doing fitness sessions for everyone to follow. That

was the obsession. So I was like, well, we can do this with rugby and let's do it. So I did a few

of those sessions with some cool people like James Hercley, Half Penny, the old jumped on, which

was amazing. And then had an appetite for it. So then Ospreys, my ex team reached out to me and

said, do we want to do a collaboration with them? I did some lives and they just started growing

from there. Yeah, locked on one ended. And then obviously I had to go back to my proper work,

which was my gym setup. But then I missed doing all the skill stuff because it would be able to

be in about four years since I touched the proper rugby ball, doing skill, doing rugby coaching

because I was a personal trainer. I just loved it. I got the buzz back and I just thought,

right, I sat me, my wife sat down and we were like, how do I, how do I do this full time?

What should we do? And yes, we just came up with a plan on how I can virtually quit my job and

just do the rugby trainer and just back myself. And so the word the rugby trainer came about

because my wife is in brand and we had a little sit down and she said, who do you, who do you,

who in the space is doing really well with the rugby stuff? And it was only one, the OG,

that was the rugby bricks, but I always used to look at the body coach, which is Joe Wicks,

because he was the audience, the similar audience that I was looking for, I was looking for

grass roots, looking for youngsters to get them into fitness or whatnot. And he was just doing

a primary school fitness regime at the time in the UK. So Joe Wicks is a UK personal trainer.

He's got millions and millions of followers. So no one knows his name at the beginning. Everyone

knows him as the body coach. So we were like, right, okay, we need a brand, my wife was like,

we need a brand, we need something because no one cares who Ben John is, but they'll care who

the rugby trainer is or the rugby coach, I looked at other time, but that was taken. So we went

for the rugby trainer. And then, yeah, from there, it's just, yeah, it's just got a lot of mistakes

along the way. I had a thought of, right, I'm going to be the rugby trainer. So that means I can do

some personal training, gym work, and I'll do a little bit of skills because I still had personal

training clients and I still wanted to be relevant in that space. And then I realized then there

was more appetite for the skills side of things because there was hundreds of personal trainers

doing rugby stuff. So, yeah, I moved in just purely skills as time went by. And then two years

ago, then I went full time with the rugby trainer, which was meaning, yeah, full into it. I was just

doing the rugby trainer stuff, which is, which is a cool, cool milestone. Yeah, isn't it? I think

it's a cool concept that you've become a professional online rugby coach. There now, I think that's

a rare thing that anybody can make a living doing something they love online through rugby. It's

absolutely awesome. Now, what was your skill set like when you started this? Because it's not only

the rugby stuff you've got to learn all this online world, right? Is that you? Yeah, the skill

stuff was easy part for me. But when I was a player, any interview I had, I was terrible.

All full of interviews. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to talk. Didn't have social media.

My wife or girlfriend other time was like, bang, get social media. You can start plugging,

brands and whatever. And I was like, absolutely no chance of getting social media. And then

moving into the personal training world, because there's so many personal trainers in London,

I was like, well, how do I market myself? Well, I need to learn to be good online and be in front

of the camera. So I invest a lot of money in courses, doing, I've got to put a public speaking

coach. That's helped me talk better in front of the camera. And also right at the beginning of

the rugby trainer, he had a client, Alex Priest, who was a big dog. Well, I saw him as a big dog,

anyway, in the marketing world. And I reached out to him. I was like, I'm thinking of this thing,

social media concept of rugby training. Do you mind helping me think in? You would just give me

a couple of pieces of advice. And then, yeah, he decided to help me. And he said, I'll back you.

And yeah, I'm with you. So I've been with him for five years now. And he's massively helped

me with the business. So he's involved in my online rugby academy with me. So both call

founders. So he's helped me with the business side. He's been a massive help for the brand

and the company growing it. What about your social media skills?

How are they? Are they average or are they? Yeah, to begin in, they were, yeah, again, loads of

trial and error. And the first thing you think about is, what's my team is going to think? Me

like doing this. But luckily, at the time, I wasn't playing with the team, but like, my close

mates, I was thinking, God, they're going to give me some stick. Yeah, if I post this. But

yeah. So you have to kind of put your ego to the side and be like, right, no, I'm doing this

because of these reasons. I have a reason why I'm posting this. And right at the beginning, I

still still have this mindset of wherever thing I post, my aim is to encourage one person to pick

up a rugby ball, everything I post. And it falls into a piece of content that falls into three

categories from me. It has to be educational, has to be entertaining, and it has to be my personality

to it because that's what makes it unique for me. And then if I put, and then sometimes I

post to the video a couple of days later, I'm like, no, actually, that doesn't cover three spots,

so I might take it down. And then over time, I learned more and more about that. I learned

how to film, how to edit, what to look for, to try and because obviously social media, you're obviously

seen it. It's a lot of psychology behind it as well. It's about how I can keep people's attention

for acts amount of time and move on. So yeah, it was a lot to learn. It was a lot to learn,

which was interesting. A lot of mistakes, but yeah, like you know, no, that's how you get better.

Oh, I love it, mate. There's some massive coaching points for this podcast and what you just

said about putting your ego to the side. I think that's like coaching 101. It's very easy when

you come into coaching to have a huge ego and get defensive and things, but you've had to learn,

you've got to drop that. And I loved how you just talked about, you just narrowed it down to one

person, learning one thing at a time. And I think that's a lovely coaching point too, just to

have a laser-like focus on just a small thing and it keeps you locked in. But what I loved most

Bernie was adding my personality to it. And I think that in itself is a coaching is really important

to be yourself. How do you get that? How do you portray that across camera screen? We talk about

here on this podcast around being authentically you when you're coaching in person, but how do you,

what some of the things you do online to make sure you're being you? So through the social media

element, it's just my passion for I'm doing, I'm doing, I'm lucky I'm doing something I absolutely

love, which is virtually me rugby ball and doing some skills virtually. I started off with just me

throwing a ball out of shed. Right, hit the shed, do this, this, this, and this. But it's just

the passion for I, as a kid, my, my childhood growing up was, my dad was a cricketer footballer,

he'd take me, my brother, my sister, down the park and we would spend, yeah, days,

whatever, just catching tennis balls, playing, getting my ball in the hand, my teammates,

after a rugby game of down the park straight away were playing, yeah, full contact or whatever

playing. We're always playing, always outside. That was in, that was virtually what I had as a kid.

And then it seeped into the professional, just spending time on my own, working on my skills,

grabbing a teammate after. So those extras, those things that I do, the individual skill side of it

is something I've been passionate about since as a kid. So it shines through in the content that I

show then because I actually love what I do. I'm lucky that I get to do it. And even if one person

just watched my, I'd still do it anyway. So even if you take it all away and I had to reset,

do it again anyway, just yeah, adjust a couple of things.

Oh, I love it too because some people were honest about your 195 centimetres tall.

Like you don't normally become a skillful rugby player at 195 centimetres, right?

Yeah, 193, I am, you always got to, you always got to put a couple of two centimetres.

I said, well, you've done, yeah, you've done, I said, well, you've done, yeah, you've done,

I was in the program. No, I don't know, I don't know why that is because it said 195.

And I think it said like 70 kilos. I think that program did. So I was a beanpull, but I'm

about 193. So I'm still, still, yeah, six foot three. Yeah, and I was just lucky that I was tall,

gangly and had, yeah, just loved, loved the, the skill side of it. And as I said, it came from

my habit as a kid, my dad being like, Ben, get out, we're doing some catching, we're doing some,

we're doing some drills. And I think that that's my philosophy is to encourage people to spend

just 10 minutes working on their individual skill. And I always think of it as a, as a flywheel.

So all those are in my online academy. So on my online academy is four kids from the age of 10

to 15 years old. And it's all based on 10 minutes of training. I tell them that this is a flywheel.

This is a part of a flywheel. So there's three parts of the flywheel. Individual skill,

in trainings, buying it in your team training, and then having a go in the games. And then it just

works. If you take one of them out, yeah, you might work, but it won't be as effective. You might,

your percentage of success of the skill might drop. So if you take away the team training,

you do things on your own, then you try it again. Yeah, you're not exposed to trying it into your

team training. So you might lose the feel of it when to do it and whatnot. So I always feel like,

I like to think about that flywheel. Work on your pass, for example, try that style of pass

in your team training, get some feedback, adjust if you need to, and then try it in a game.

And if you make a mistake in the game, then yeah, go back to the flywheel, try it again in

individual work on craft and master that pass. And then you have to then do in any team training.

It has to be a little sequence there because as you know, the skill is only as good as the decision

as well. So and that's how you learn it in games and in training in your team training.

Hmm, I love them. My habits as a kid have shaped me immensely. That's quite a powerful statement,

too. And I think for a lot of coaches who are coaching younger people, just the habits you

put in at a young age as your testament to last a lifetime, don't they? Yeah. And for example,

if you brought a kid to me online and they were absolutely brand new, it's not about what they

do in the 10 minutes. It's just going out and doing something for 10 minutes. It doesn't have to

be specifically strict passing because if I was a kid, I'd find that super boring, just doing

10 passing drills for 10 minutes, whatever. Go out, start off with, just go down the park,

take your kid down the park and just do something fun for 10 minutes. I don't know, something random,

tennis ball catch and have a game one on one basketball, whatever it is. So just get into the habit

of 10 minutes. Right. On Monday, we go to the park for 10 minutes or 20 minutes, I'll fill whatever

it is. Just stick to a routine. And then over time, I was to get a little bit older, that 10 minutes,

then you can shape it into more specific stuff to rugby. And then it's easier then to, so that

building the habit is the hard part. The goal of what skill you practice is the easy part to change.

You can just move things into a change, adapt it to your goal. So the habit is the hard part to build.

So that's a really good coaching practice, isn't it? You've got to create the love first,

right? If the love's not there from the outset, everything else is rocky ground after that.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if you want to go straight into specific rugby stuff,

you and your daughter or son go to the park and re-enact a memorable moment in the game,

like when I was a kid, we used to, even though I'm Welsh, we used to re-enact Johnny Wilkinson's

drop goal. So we've done the park. Johnny Wilkinson spent 20 minutes trying to re-enact his drop goal.

And if I did something wrong, then my mate or my dad or whatever would just try to tell me,

I'm not trying this instead. I'll drop the ball like this. You can still do coaching points,

but you can still be fun and creative. For example, in England, Paul Luck chipping over the top,

give that a go. Have a go, catching the ball, chipping over the top, and yeah, be,

had you Paul Luck for 10 minutes? That's right. I think it's a beautiful phrasing. I reckon it

lasts more than just through your childhood. That fun first concept makes it sick and certainly

in the professional teams I've been with coaching. The funerators, the more the skills get better,

magnifies, because people are enjoying what they're doing. They're trying that little bit harder.

And you often think with professional players, you don't necessarily need to do that, because

they're all motivated and self-regulated, all that stuff. But without question, you create

their element of fun in an environment, and you watch your skills and drills balloon and magnifying

compound exponentially. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, and fun doesn't necessarily have to,

I think sometimes fun gets mistaken for just laughing, but as fun is low to different things.

It's creative. It's being creative. It's energy, bringing energy to the session. It's bringing

variety to the session. Yeah, it's low to different things, what fun means. It's being

competitive. The reason why we play rugby is the competition as well, the games and whatnot.

So fun doesn't necessarily mean laughing. It can mean low to different things.

The way you deliver the message to the kids or to those players.

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It's a good one to make, Ben, because that is often something that people say we can't

be all fun, but just by separating out the fun is not just laughter. It is excitement,

competition, creativeness, variation. That's an important distinction to make around that word,

because it often fun gets thrown around sort of willy-nilly, right? But to say it's a bigger

umbrella is quite an important coaching piece, right? Yes, I find that because you can't laugh all

the time, no chance. It's a tough sport. It's a tough sport, but yes, it absolutely makes sense,

for sure. There's a few times I've done some post-post rugby. I was thinking what can I replace

with, because I wasn't very good at communicating how I feel, so I used to replicate. I tried to

replicate, like put my body through a little bit of pain by doing something stupid, like a big fitness

event. I did like a hundred K, and it was tough, so hard. It was very tough. We were through the

Bracken Beacons, and there's a moment in that hundred K, where I took a little second. I had a

little look around, and I was on top of the Bracken Beacons. This beautiful sun was coming through,

and I was like, oh, this is it. My body is fried, but this is the moment. This is class. This is my

little bit of fun of this hundred K grind in journey. Then I went on, and afterwards, then

that's all I can think about. How nice was that? How fun was that little moment there to myself?

It was tough, but this is the same with rugby. It's something that's going to be very tough,

but if you can get little moments within it where you can have a little element of fun, and again,

I didn't laugh at that time. I just found a bit of gratitude for that moment. I think there's

a lot of different ways on how you can portray fun. I love that, mate. I love that it means

I actually heard a little bit of research the other day around the way you start and finish

a session, disproportionately affects your whole impression of the whole session. For example,

if you have ten seconds of just pure fun to start and finish, the feedback of the session,

if that's there, is so much higher in the scores than if you just went straight into the session,

just straight into the guts with no little element of fun book ending each end. I can see why.

Your last memory, where your first memory sets the tone and the anchor point and the last

experience, is like, wow. We were chatting about this when we went away on holiday,

went to the resort that we went to, and we welcomed them. They were like, oh, welcome. Here's

a coffee, all this stuff. We were like, wow, this is incredible. And they just started the trip

really well. And then when they finished, they did the same. And we were like, this is amazing.

What a great holiday. And it was a rainy sort of holiday. And you're like, but just that little

disproportionate effect it had was phenomenal. So I think that's cool that you reference the fun

of those different things. Now, Benny, I want to talk to you now about this question which we

asked in the showers. And your perspective is an interesting one. How do you define culture?

Yeah. Great question. Like, I'm based all online. And so that obviously that is,

I'm an individual, individual skills coach as well. So I just work with the individual. But

how I would define it is, for me, is a belonging, is a community. Those are the two big things,

for me, to define it because even though online, we are more connected than ever.

It seems to be that we are more, a lot more, the loneliness has gone up. Obviously,

post-COVID as well was so used to being on our own, being on our phones. And we lose that

connectivity, specifically in somewhere in London where there's so many people, but there's

so many lonely people as well. And I think that's what's special about rugby is we have that

community. And I've gone from being a professional rugby player and then going into it, I moved

out of the rugby. And the first thing somebody said to me is when you finish, you'll miss the team

more than the playing. And I was like, okay, I get that. And then went to a gym. And luckily the gym,

I moved to the job I had was exp professional people in there, like sports people. And I had that

culture straight away. It was absolutely amazing. Loved it. I had best four years going with them.

And then I did the rugby trainer. And it was just me and a camera on a field on my own. And I

did that for, I've done that for five years now. And the first two or three years, because he was

locked down as well. And the locked down two or three in the UK. I think we had locked down for like

two or three years. And it was just me in the car. And I just missed everyone. It was, it was

a lonely place. And I did feel I lost my belong into a team. And I said to my wife, I was like,

guys don't really know what to do. And she was like, oh, when do you go back and do some,

because I retired because of concussion. So I couldn't do contact. Oh, I decided to end up

going to play Tag Rugby with a couple of my mates, a couple of other Samoan lads or Kiwi lads that

live in London. And then they play Tag Rugby. So I was like, again, somebody said to me first,

you know, come and play Tag Rugby. And I was like, I am playing Tag Rugby. What are you talking about?

But I joined and absolutely love it. Not because of the game, but because I'm catching up with my

mates. I'm going to chat with them and feel a place of belonging. And I felt that personally,

for me, someone who I feel like understands it. But then looking online, looking at some of these,

these kids and the parents that I'm coaching is right. Even though I'm an online plan, I don't

want to just send you a PDF and say, hey, Ben, make all the best and drop me a message. I want to,

I want to create a community. And I learned a lot of this from building an online. So I built my

gyms online, online program for COVID. And it was called, it was a six week little course,

but it was all about community, all about encouraging people just to spend 20 minutes doing this

workout every day. And I thought, that is exactly what I need to do online. I need to do online

in rugby instead of doing press ups and whatever. I'll do skills. So building the community online.

So and that's why I feel like the online space for myself has been successful is because they don't

just get a program. They actually get a support system. They get accountability. They get a

community because it gets to a point where all I got to do is spark a conversation. And those who

are in my community, even though they're all individuals, they all share their their tips, their

advice on different parts of the game and often off the pitch as well. Parents share their advice

of what they've had in certain scenarios and whatnot. So yeah, it's a cool environment. I think

that is the it's a long answer, but the community side is such a big part because we are community

beings. We want to be a part of somebody. We want to belong to something. And I think that is

even more important online. Yeah, man, I love that we are community beings. I actually think

that's amazing to remember for all coaches because when you say that, it's a so many lonely people

at the moment with a lot of online stuff that your job is a coach is to make sure there's a community

that's building around whatever you're doing, whether you're online or in person. And when you

sort of think about that, that you're the leader of a community, sort of just tweaks how you're

approaching the duty you're about to go into, right? Yeah. And so what does that mean for me? It

means I am, if so many comes into my community, it's my job to know as much about them as I can.

I want to know the players name, players, the parents names, where they're from or position they

are. Have a little bit of care. Oh, how did you get off this week? What challenges did you face?

Oh, why did you think like that? Why did you feel like that? So try and get as much information as

I can because the next time I speak to them, I'm going to be like, say Ben's the dad, hey, Ben,

I was going, I was, I was, Sam, how's your daughter doing? I'll blah, blah, just ask as many questions

they feel like they've been here and they also feel a part of something they feel that duty of care

for me because I generally really do want to care for them because I want them to get better

because the longer they stay in the program, the better they'll get. So my aim is to try and keep

them in there by, yeah, actually generally caring about people, which is sometimes gets overlooked on

online spaces because it does take time. A lot of my time is messaging people, which is, which is,

which is, yeah, it is tough sometimes, but it's also a part of my job, which is, which is

quite nice to be fair. Is that actually a big part of how you do it online? You make a real

effort to just respond to everybody personally in a day where chat GBT and all that stuff

hugely prominent. You actually make that effort to reach out and connect? Yeah, for sure.

In my academy, my online academy, yeah, I'll message everyone back, give them, yeah, give them

voices, voice note as well, share my opinion and whatnot. And then it's a different world

than on social media because I get a lot of messages and I've got three or four different

platforms and I've got an academy, different platforms as well. So not just the rugby train,

I've got the rugby train as academy as well. So there's a lot of questions on there. So I've started

to integrate some AI just to get as much information as I can. But then when their information

get detailed, I'll then voice note them or message them. So I have started using a lot of AI tools

to help me with the initial conversation to get as much information out as I possibly can.

For example, you might give me a follow-up end and then I'll prompt you then with,

hey Ben, why did you follow me because of X, Y and Z, blah blah blah. And then you would be,

you'd say, oh yeah, my son is struggling with his tackling and then boom, straight away,

then I can see that. And then I'll respond myself. I'd be like, right, have you done this,

this and this, firstly, we check my YouTube, try and get them to, because I don't want to just

give the information straight away to them because that's the easy part. I want them to,

I want you to ignore it. So I'm virtually coaching online. I'm just saying, Ben, why do you think

you're you're making bad tackles? What's going on there? Why is your son? Ask your son,

if he was coaching himself, what was he doing wrong? So I would do as much as I possibly can not

to give the answer because I want them to understand it better. And then if they can't come up with

the answer, then I will, yeah, guide them to the answer and then give them a, give them something

to help them, then that could be a YouTube video or it could be a program or it could just be a

little bit of a tap or whatnot. It's so fascinating with the online coaching space because

a lot of what we talk on here is the in-person stuff, but you have to do, you have to,

well, you're talking about getting this community, this connection over an intermediary platform

is as a fascinating shift for coaches. Do you think, do you think it's going to become more and

more prevalent with coaching online? So when I started, so I started in 2020, I think yeah,

five years ago I started and there was only one coach that I could see that was doing the online

stuff and I was Peter Green, rugby bricks. And five years now down the line, there's loads,

there's so many, which is awesome to see. And I think definitely there's a definitely a scope for

it. It does take a lot of time and like time of your investment of time into it. But once you get

up and run in, I think there's definitely a scope for it for sure. And the potential of growth

is massive because you're not just reaching those in your local community, you're reaching

millions and millions of rugby players worldwide. And what's quite cool is I get to see my analytics

of where people are watching my stuff and places like India are growing massively in rugby.

And there's a lot of rugby growing in India in Europe and South America is massively growing as well.

And obviously you get the South Africa as well and obviously New Zealand, Australia,

UK, France. So, but yeah, it's cool to see where the rugby is growing and the opportunity for

or your one-to-one coach in. Oh, what a nice, yeah, it's quite cool to see. Yeah, man,

you're at the driver's seat of where the growth in world rugby is, right? Like just on your

analytics, I love it. Now, when you're talking about online, have any, had any shockers or mistakes

that you've made online? We have missed the coaching mark. Anything that stands out where you go,

I'm not going to do that again, or even the other coaches have made online that you'd say it

suggests isn't the best way of doing things. Yeah, so myself at the way, first of all, just

always replying to people right at the beginning and giving the answer straight away. And then I

learned that to be like, right, no, I shouldn't give them the answer because they're just going to

take it and probably not apply it anyway. So I want to try and I was trying to like get,

even though it takes a little bit more time, but trying to get them to see what the mistake is

that they're doing. So kind of getting them to be their own coach virtually because then I always

found that youngsters getting them to learn as a coach, as if they were going to coach their best

friend or their mum or dad or whatever, they understand because they understand the skill then

a lot better. And that's something that I do online now is even though, so even if you are part of

my academy, so all my drills are skill-based drills like passing tackling whatever that they

can do on their own or with their teammate or whatever. And they would film a couple of their

reps, one or two of their reps and then they've sent me the video and then I would give them

analysis feedback every month. And it's exactly the same as that. I try to coach them through,

I try to give them a couple of questions. So it won't be like this, it'll be it's an app called

which I'll give my face to be here and their visual be here and I'll be talking through

and I'll give them a couple of things, a couple of questions to answer and then they'll apply

back to me with a voice note. And the way I speak to them is try to get them to see their mistake

and how they would coach themselves be like, hey Ben, imagine this is Sam, you're looking at Sam

now, how would you coach Sam to do that tackle a little bit different? What was missing from that

tackle? Just voice note me, let me know and I want to see if you can understand what I'm seeing.

And then they all give me the answer and they'll be like, yeah, well done, blah, blah,

this week I want you to try and do what you just told Sam to do. I want you to try and do that

in your training. Let's see how it goes and yeah, drop me a message next week with the

old video of what you've changed and try it in your team training session as well, give it a

go in your team training session. And you found that that's really a powerful thing which is

instead of just saying do this, you're that coaching concept of giving them to be coaches

on an online space is powerful, right? Yeah, for sure. I've felt that has helped me and helped

obviously allow the player to actually sit back and be like, right, I need to look at this

outside of my mind. I need to look at this for what it is. I'm looking at this vigil with fresh

eyes now because I'm a coach's eyes. And I feel like the youngsters seem to take to that very

well because they just saw you used to probably just being told, do this, do this, do this,

whereas they're actually taking a second to be, right, okay, I can see it now, I understand it.

And then also they get to understand what their body is doing as well because they are actually

out looking themselves. My body's moving like that. Okay, I can control my body. I'll just try

and adapt and change. And when they do adapt and change and they film themselves doing one or two

reps, then they get to understand their body a little bit more. It's quite, yeah, it's quite a

nice way of doing it, but also it's making sure that they're not obsessed by filming every

rep by the, I always tell them to do one or two reps and then put the camera down and then just

get on with your session, do the rest of your session and just as long as I see one or two reps,

then we can give a little bit of feedback for that. That's an important point, isn't it,

because in a day in age where it's so easy to film everything, you just don't film everything

because what does it do when you're obsessed with filming yourself the whole time?

Yeah, it's also this day and age as well. Everything is perfect on social media.

Everything we post is perfect. Everyone's life is perfect. And kids miss the ball down of,

right, how do they become perfect? How did that past become so good? It's because they made

a thousand mistakes. So people forget, that's the best way to learn is making those mistakes.

You need to, you need those mistakes. So they need to understand that it's not about being at

having perfect reps all the time. I don't want you to send me a perfect shot. I want you to send me

three minutes of your session. So I can see what you're doing well and what mistakes you're doing

so then we can adapt and I can't see them make mistakes because that's how they're going to get

better. Well, I'll make sure you're intrigued about that whole concept, like put the camera down

and just work, play and work and make mistakes. And then you almost want to take a random shot

rather than the beautiful one that you've presented right for the social media. I think that's,

I think that's an important point that you just put the, could put the camera down and just go

right. Yeah, it's, um, it is tough. It is because obviously you would always want to send your coach

a really good, oh, look at this, look at this clip coach. This is quite a nice little clip of me

passing the ball, making a line break or whatnot. So yeah, sometimes I get like sessions sent,

a game sent to me of their highlights. And I'm like, right, okay, cool. Can you send me now,

can you send me the whole video? And instead of watching five minutes of your highlights,

I want to just watch five minutes of your game. I just want to see what you're doing away from,

away from the ball. Because if you are doing that well with the ball in your hand,

right, how do we get the ball in your hand more? What are you doing? What are you doing without the

ball in your hand? And that's something that I work on with the individual is what are you doing

off the ball? And there's three things I try to get them to be better at is moving, scanning,

communicating and having that mindset of being like a Lionel Messi. If you watch him in a game,

he's literally head on a swivel walking around communicating. So can we do that? Can we move well

into position whilst communicating, while scanning and talking to players around you? And then

what will happen then is you might get more touches and you might have a longer highlight wheel.

So it's yeah, how we can get them with their ball in their hand for longer. And obviously some

players are 10 years old. So I wouldn't wouldn't speak to them like that. But the older boys and girls,

I would try to get them to be better at those key. Because those are the skills that takes

no talent. That plus hard work and those are fundamental. If those are the skills that every

top player has is, yeah, hard work, communication, movement and scanning. That's what creates a very

good player. And if we can nail them at a young age plus everything else that goes with it, then

yeah, there'll be, yeah, much, much better player when they comes to that 18 year old.

Oh, actually, I actually completely agree on that side of things. It's a fascinating dynamic

to you. Where do you see it going to going forward? Do you think we're going to have more online

stuff? Or do you reckon that there's going to be a shift back to more in person stuff? Or

is it, are we through the gate now? And is it a digital world?

Yeah, obviously the digital world will grow and grow and grow. But you can't beat real contact

like as much as I do love the online world, it's nothing better than doing a one-to-one session.

I still do one-to-one sessions in half-term because I love it. It's so good having that person,

coaching, face-to-face and having a bit of fun with it as well, seeing their progress,

because what I kind of encourage them to do is if they are apart my academy once in a while,

once every six months or whatever, come down to a session with me, I get to actually meet

the person. I see the development. We all have a good session and then I can still see their

progress online as well. So it's kind of sometimes it's a hybrid, but obviously the players that live

abroad or live away, I can't do that, but yeah, you can't beat that face-to-face. But I do think

that the space will grow because it's still... So one of my inspiration when I first started off

because there wasn't much in rugby, it's looking at other sports and football is big on individual

skills and then the online coaching world is big. Also, you have like basketball, NFL, it's all

quite big in that individual skills point of view and I feel like rugby is now starting to

adopt that individual skills coaching role in which I think is quite fascinating and

interesting to see because of the coaches have... It's such a complicated game. The coaches have

so much to think about, like a skill of catching. We assume everyone should be able to catch well,

but it is a tough skill. Being able to catch specifically at full pace, being able to move on

and off the ball whilst having defenders in your eye, it is a tough skill. So players need to take

it on themselves to work on catching skills with a teammate or with their parents or whatever

with their siblings just to upskill. So when they do come to the game, they feel so much more

confident, comfortable on the ball and because it is a big part of the game,

similar parts, same with kicking. As a kid, it was usually the tens that used to spend their time

on their own and that was the only position that would spend time doing their own individual skills,

whereas trying to encourage all positions just to get their hands on the ball as much as they can.

And the more they adopt that, then the more their skill level hopefully will go up and they'll

go into their team training. Like I say with our flywheel, they work on their individual skill.

Their coach doesn't have to then spend X amount of time working on passing drills,

they can do more team-based stuff. So I do think the individual's coach works hand in hand

with the team coach and whatnot, and I think it will grow for sure.

Yeah, it's fascinating that rugby is such a sport. There is actually so many different

little macro skills in the game. It's not just tough. Yeah, like you look at all the different

positions. Each one's got their own components which are so different to the others,

right? It's a smorgasbord to choose from. And that's probably the joy of rugby, right?

It's a game for everybody. Big, tall, skinny, 193 centimetre centre, something for everybody.

Exactly. Well, Benny, you talked about that face-to-face piece and there's still a real

important piece here, and you sense it more because you're also online the whole time.

In terms of face-to-face experiences, who are some of the coaches that have left the mark on you

as a professional player, then it's led into your own coaching.

So, yeah, when I played, we had Brad Davis, defence coach. He came across, and I thought he's

brilliant, really enjoyed the way he coached. Yes, he was very, very hard at points, but then

other points then he would bring that creativity, which I absolutely loved. He'd grabbed me after

a session, and exactly though, I'll try this skill. I'll have a little bit of fun. I'll play a

game now, but it's a skill-based game, and that was great. But one thing that stuck with me massively

is, I was a 13, and obviously, I know for a while there's a lot of movement going to be on me

defensively, so I need to be on my toes. And just before the scrum set, I'd be standing there,

be like, right, ready, ready, ready. And then the scrum now hadn't even formed yet, and I was just

there holding tension and whatnot. And after one game he came up to me, he was like,

he showed me that he was like, what are you doing? What are you thinking here?

I just thought, I don't know, I'm just getting ready. I'm psyching myself up, ready to

read, to play, and whatnot. And he was like, that takes a lot of energy, a lot of focus,

and you can't do that all game, because I was like that all game. I was like, switched on all the

time. And he was like, what best thing that you can try and learn is have the ability to switch

on, switch off in key moments, so then you can hold your focus. So, for example, as soon as the

ball goes dead, switch off, turn to a teammate, and just have a chat with him, and just think about

what, what's happening in front of me? What's the defense doing opposite? How are you going to break

them down? Have a casual chat about it. And then soon as you're ready, learn to switch yourself

back on. And he said, come up with a word, put a word on a piece of tape on your wrist, and then

you can practice by looking at that word, okay, that word means switch on, boom, get on into it.

And then as you get more use to it, then you don't have to put that right in down. You can just

do it in your mind. And I think that massively helped, because I was, I watched a video about

Jockovich, and they asked him, why is he one of the greatest players? And he said it's not to do

with working hard, because every professional rugby player, or every professional tennis player

works hard. It's about how well he can stay in the moment, how long he can stay in the moment for.

And if he's thinking about what he did wrong, or what he did right, then he's not in the moment,

and he can't perform the best he possibly can with his decision and his skill, because his mind

tells where so. The best players, and I think that's absolutely true for rugby, the best players,

the ones who can stay in the moment for the longest. And obviously that's a skill that we can

learn. I think that is what Brad was trying to tell me is learn to be able to switch on, switch off.

But when you're in the moment, be present in the moment, where I was just thinking about what's

going to happen now in 10 seconds time, rather than being in the moment right there, switch on,

switch off, boom. And then yeah, play was in front of me.

How about that? It's kind of a cool concept, doesn't it? Like what he was teaching you there,

wasn't a tactical, tech, tech skill. It was like a softer skill around the human aspect of things,

right? So teaching you how long you can stay in the moment and just giving your little pointers,

but also encouraging you to work out ways yourself, right? And just acclimatize. I actually think it's

actually important one to know about that switch on, switch off. I reckon as coaches, you see that a lot,

even the way you turn up to training, not just games, but you turn up and you switch on at a certain

point before training. I certainly remember that as a player. That's an important piece to be able to

cross that white line and you become something else, a different version of yourself, because rugby

requires that. You can't be this aggressive person that's trying to tackle people at the supermarket

and be on edge. You've got to be able to cross the line, you switch, you cross back, you switch back.

Yeah, I think it's a, is that what the some really good coaches you've had were good at that,

those other things, not just the tech tech? Yeah, I found that. I actually love that side of it,

because that was something that I went nowhere near. I didn't do any of the psychology side.

And looking back now, I wish I probably did lean into that side a little bit more and work on that,

because somebody once said to me, I can't remember who I might, something I might have listened to,

being like, you work really hard in the gym, you train in your body, why not use a bit more of the

think inside of it, like the psychologist or whatnot, lean into them because you're just training

your mind. And that is, that's super powerful. If you can get your mind sharper and more in control,

then it's going to massively help you at your game and even on and off the pitch as well.

Yeah, it's a little bit sometimes, I unsaid the power of the mind, right? And it's often,

you don't think, I've either got it or I don't, but certainly with my own progression in life,

I've certainly realized things like leadership, you kind of think you're either a leader or not,

but that's not true. It's a skill set you can learn and improve, right? And that sort of goes to all

of that stuff you're referring to. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything that you've picked up? You've

learned the psychology side. Yeah. Well, that would be a big one. The leadership, I remember when I was

a professional player, I got asked to be kept under the team months and I just said, no, I said,

I don't want to. And they said, well, why not? And I go, well, I don't want to just, I don't like

standing up and talking in front of the room. And they're like, well, that's not kind of a leadership

is. And I just thought, I don't like that. I'm not good at that. That's not me. I'm not a leader.

And that's just what I thought leadership was. But as it turns out, it is a skill you can learn. And

like yourself, I did public speaking training, went to toast masters. And I was just grew me through the

roof. And then all of a sudden, I realized I can stand up now and just be myself comfortably up

on stage. And you didn't have to be anything particularly. You just had to be yourself. And that's

where you started to grow as a leader. And certainly what I've enjoyed on that front now that you

are asking is when we talk about like player, player, empowerment in teams, it's I think a lot of

coaches think, well, we just give the power of the player. You guys decide the coaching piece

underneath the psychology pieces. You're actually facilitating like what you do in how they become

leaders. Like I would have loved to have someone say, the leadership's just this, here's a little

tip you can practice your leadership. Like in a huddle, here's a couple of words you can say,

which are powerful leadership words. And when I got these little tools, they're just tools,

like leadership tools, say this at this time. And this will be the start. Do this at this time.

And this will be the start. I, I, here's an example that in a huddle, I was sort of like, I don't

really know what to say here. And one of the coaches, I said, chat as you just said, just start with

trust. Hey boys or girls, just trust the process, trust the system. That's all we need to do.

And you'll find that the whole group will go, okay, cool, yeah, yeah, you don't have to put

point out individual things and every little nitty gritty. Just a simple phrase like trust,

trust the system, trust yourself, trust what you do, trust your mate. And then people just go,

yeah, I can do that. I can do that. And they do it. And then it's a leadership thing, but it's

just a simple little tool. And it's that sort of psychology, which I think that I've really grown

a lot from is that this stuff is all skills and tools you can learn. And I didn't always think

that at all, you know, do it. Are you the sign on that front? Yeah, definitely, yes.

Specifically the leader, like the talk in front of people, because I found out the first two

years of doing the rugby trainer is literally just me and a camera. And I'm speaking to a phone.

I just really understand who I'm talking to. And then, yeah, after lockdown, I came out and

came out with loads of followers and whatnot. And I had to do a few talks. And I just froze up

to start with because I wasn't I wasn't used to speaking to people because I didn't really do it

as a professional rugby player because I wasn't good at that. And then I was like, oh, no,

I'm in an hour and all the time. And yeah, it found it tough. So that's why I grabbed that's

why I sign up to Charlotte who helped me with the public speaking exactly the same as you,

just to just to learn the ins and outs of what to do and just to be confident in speaking.

Yeah, it's quite daunting to start with. But when you message me with this, I was like, oh gosh,

I'm pretty nervous with this now. Because I haven't got I haven't got a ball in my hand or

anything. It's funny. I mean, what do I do with my hands now? Yeah. I saw you got a pen.

This is actually something I quite enjoyed just having the pen because I find for myself. And

if you ever watch me coach or talk in a meeting, I often have a book, a big or book. And I just

have it worth me because if there's something in my head, I write it down because my head goes

in all sorts of different directions and I will forget it. So it's just a little tool that I've

had that helps. But a really cool one that Sam Veste at Northhand and Saints said to me around

this stuff, which I think is exactly what we're talking about. As he said, that a lot of coaches will

say things like our players need to communicate more. They've got to get better at talking and

communicating as an example, standing up and being able to talk. But then he went a step further and

said, well, that's my job as a coach. Just a lot of coaches will just say the players don't talk.

But where in your session are you actually given that opportunity and guiding and coaching

people how to be better talkers? And he used his team meetings as the opportunity to do that.

So instead of him just getting out talking, he would use that as I want the players to talk more.

So in these sessions, the whole point is them to talk. And so he'd cue people up. He'd make,

do those things. So he was actually giving them the tools. And I want you to use this phrase.

And I want you to have this tone. And he'd make a really soft place for that to happen.

And the more he could get them talking, the better they're going to talk on the field. And he

actually said, the better they can connect with each other, the more easier it will be to talk

in front of people. And so that was part of his communication as well as getting the connections

better. And I just think that's a lovely concept around when you're in an environment,

it's not just the on-field stuff, but it's the bigger piece stuff, the connection, the leadership,

the talking. And you've got to put time and effort into those as well as much as any drawing skill.

Yeah, as you said, those softer skills, they go a long way and it comes into that place of the

community and the belonging of the team, isn't it? You feel like you've been here. Do you feel like

you can speak your mind? And that goes not just the players, it goes for some of the staff members

as well. And you're all syncing up as a team aren't you? And that's something I try to encourage

you. My online platform, even though the players don't know each other, then not in the same team,

is I do a webinar once a month and we do, I talk on topics that aren't skills focused. We'll

talk about how to build confidence in a tackle, how to, what was our last one? The last one was,

how to get yourself prepared for a big game. Things like that, where I just get people to,

and what was quite cool is afterwards. One of the dad's message me and said it was really cool

to hear some of the younger players talking about an issue that their son had, but he'd never

heard any of his teammates talk about it. He was nice to know that his issue before a big game

is replicated from someone else, but they just don't talk about it. It was quite cool for them

to hear that from from another mouth, which is like you said, trying to encourage them to talk and

share and then you get that synergy of, oh yeah, I feel like that as well. Okay, cool. And it's not

just me. A problem shared is a problem half is the old phrase that goes, but that's a very good point.

That's a very good point though, Ben, like just by providing that platform, what you do, you're

actually creating this, this community where it compounds the belonging by the little things which

pop up amongst it, right? Like these little things like that. It's such a valuable resource,

what you're doing there. Yes, it's really cool. I love it. It's so cool to have and

somebody asked me what's my goal with it all and it's hard to say because I don't really know because

there's unknown territory with the online space, but I just said that my goal would be in 20 years time,

someone comes up to me, a kid, or a adult at the time and be like, oh, you the guy who helped me

20 years ago. Rugby, thanks you ever so much. As long as I get, I'd be so tough, that'd be

amazing to have. So that's my goal in 20 years, somebody tapped me on the shoulder and be like,

hey, cheers man, you helped me. Something like it's the same type of mentality of you, you're probably

your PE teacher in school, like that PE teacher there, I can still remember my PE teacher, what

you told me, always being the trisgrower's photo. And I was like at the time, I was like, what are

you talking about? Yeah, I don't understand. And what you meant is support the ball player all the time,

support the ball player. One of my strengths in the game was anyone who made a line break, I was on

their shoulder and I picked up so many little tries just by trying to be in a trisgrower's photo

all the time. And I always think back to them, being like, yeah, you obviously helped me massively,

obviously not just that saying, but yeah, just trying to push us. And hopefully that will be

something in 20 years time, the same type of thing with some of the players I'm coaching.

And what would you give a piece of advice to any coach that's looking to sort of maybe not

necessarily go full-time into online coaching, but just dabble in online coaching with their teams?

What's a big piece of advice that you'd say to them? So firstly, I would say the good thing that's

helped me with rugby is the ability to be ruthlessly consistent. We all want to be

grow business or grow companies in a month's time. But I set myself a goal right, and I do this now

for the next five years. I'm just going to chip away to chip away to yeah, it's the saying we

overestimate what we can do in one year, but underestimate what we can do in 10 years. I love that

saying because if you just consistently show up, show up, show up, even if there's once a week online,

show up once a week online and do that time and time again, majority of people would drop off

after a month. But can you do it for a year? Start for the year, show up for a year, just be online,

show up with intent, those three things that I said at the beginning inspire, educate, and

personality, and do that online and be consistent with it for one year. And along the way, learn,

watch what people are doing, find out what is working, and then apply it to yourself, give it a

goal, try it out, and then be consistent with it. And you'll be blown like you, I asked you before

this, it must be two years that you've been doing this. You said it's only a year like how much

you've grown in a year. So imagine now doing that for five years time where you couldn't be. So

it's just mad, isn't it? It's just like just tick away, tick away. Yeah, one week after another,

after another, and see where you get to. Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff in life about that,

just the amount of consistency or persistency your shows are just incredible.

Ruselessly consistent, love that. Now, the last question today, which I'd like to ask you,

is what is one belief that you have about rugby or coaching, that you believe in, that you reckon

a lot of your contemporaries would disagree with? Yeah, so because I'll go more towards the social

media side. Some of my social media posts are trick shots. And I would do some sort of trick shot

that you'll never see in a rugby game. And I say to the audience, right, grab a rugby ball and

give this a go. And I get loads of messages from whether they're some coaches as well, coaches,

parents, people, adults saying, don't do this. This is pointless. You won't see this in a rugby game.

Obviously, I get a lot of positives as well. I mean, I get I'll try that out. But there's a big reason

why I do that. And I don't do it all the time. I'll do it once a month, maybe. So there's three main

reasons why I do that. And the first one is business reasons for social media, trick shots are a good

way to showcase my platform because it gets to more people because it's not just rugby audience.

It's people in football world or whatever. They see my trick shots and it gets more audience

to my platform. So it's it's social media, firstly, to get more eyes on my platform because it's

something fun and exciting to do. The second one then is this could encourage not just rugby players,

but as I said, footballers, different sports to be like, I can give that. I'm going to try that out.

So then they grab a rugby ball. They get outside, which is my main focus is can I inspire people

to pick up a rugby ball and all of a sudden then they get outside for the get outside and they

might do something else. They might just be like, Oh, I've got a rugby ball on my hand now.

Oh, I'm not just going to try that trick shot. I'm going to try something else and and spend

a little bit more time. So it encourages people to get outside and pick up a rugby ball and they

might virtually go into something else. Because once you're outside, then yeah, yeah, you tend to

spend more time outside. And then the third one then is is understanding that to be able to do

this skill, you have to learn to do it. Learning is a skill itself. You have to fail fail fail fail fail

adjust and then as you go on and go on and go on. So you actually learn to be better at learning.

And then you understand that mechanics then and then you can chuck in you can change the skill. So

for example, then you try you try doing the skill you've done all that blah blah blah blah blah and

then all of a sudden then you get it right. Oh, amazing. Well done. Then you come to me then I see

you do that. And then we're doing the same thing on tackle technique. And then you can't get it

right. And then you quit. And I'm like, wait a second. You didn't quit when you did that.

That trick over there, whatever. Just use the same formula. You try try try try try try. You

might take a little bit longer because there's more technical skill. But it's the same concept is.

So they learned to be a little bit better at learning. Even if it's a small little fraction of it

still still a same concept. Yeah, that's why I do it really.

The trick shots are the magic for growth. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. It's just yeah,

it's trying to, yeah, trying to get people to get a ball in their hand, isn't it? And you never

know because it's mad, isn't it? To think when we were kids, punishment was bent. Get inside.

Yeah. Whereas now it seems to be the opposite. The punishment is now get off that iPad. Get outside.

I ain't going out there's raining. Whereas when we were kids, he was like, I ain't going inside,

no chance. That's exactly right. Yeah, it's mad. So can we, how's it going in Australia with

the banter social media ban? What's that like with your kids? It relevant. It's like not

an issue at all. Like it's a good thing. I think the general consensus is it's a good thing. And I

think it is. It just puts a little bit of authority to it, like, be as humans, generally,

probably follow the rules inherently. And when there's a rule, you sort of stick to it and you feel

bad, naughty and all that stuff. I think it's a good thing. I haven't seen the flow on effect,

but certainly in our house that the kids haven't grumbled or anything at all. It's just life is

usual. But it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a fascinating moral choice. And Australia's gone that way.

And I think probably leading the way in it and we'll time will tell whether it's a good thing or not.

But yeah, yeah, I tend to, yeah, I tend to agree with that. Yeah, I like the idea. I think UK

is starting to talk about it. So it's starting to, yeah, people are starting to look at Australia

and try to replicate. I know France are talking about it as well. So that's something I've

obviously kept an eye on over the last few because obviously a lot of my content is started off

with trying to encourage the kid, whereas now I'm tending towards going and moving towards talking

to the parents. And I'm talking to the parents now because obviously I'm thinking ahead of what

could be with the social media banning side of it. So yeah, even things like that, I'm trying to

adjust and trying to stay ahead looking at looking to see what's coming up. So yeah, trying to,

trying to learn. Isn't it funny how these little shifts and policy shifts? And likewise,

like laws and rugby, like one little tweak here has this compounding waterfalling effect to a

whole lot of people in different areas. And you being the main one where this is your

proficient, professional online coacher, then a lot of your audience in Australia now aren't

able to actually watch that stuff online. It's incredible. The chain of events, which happened.

Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Ben, Ben John, if I may, I'd just like to sum up my three key takeaways

from this awesome conversations today and a really different conversation to about a medium which

is growing and will continue to grow. And they are these. Number one, this concept that fun

is often mistaken just for laughter and you pointed out that it's more than that and it's a variety

of things from competition to creativeness to gratitude to variation. And I think it's a really

cool concept just redefining fun and what its association is and the importance of it. I just

love that because I've heard it sort of banded about in a negative way sometimes. Number two is

we are community beings. I love that phrase around some of your definition of culture. And I

actually love it that your job as a coach is to make sure that community is always there,

continually building and growing the community, whether it's online or in person. And that's a

duty of care for the coach and the leader to do. And number three is this concept you talked about

is getting players to be their own coach. By them thinking about drill or a skill as if they're

coaching someone else is a really lovely way to understand better. It helps them just take it

away from the self and put it to someone else. And when you get someone to be a coach, the learning

is better. And you said later in the show, learn to get better at learning. And I think by making

players think like a coach, they are definitely doing that. Ben John, what an absolute pleasure to be

on the coaching culture podcast this weekend. If you want to know more about Ben, the rugby trainer

academy.com is where you'll find him. But honestly, you just type in great rugby stuff and it'll

come up across all platforms on social media unless you're under 16 years of old in Australia

in which you won't be able to access those. What a pleasure being to have you on the podcast.

I think so much. I loved it. I enjoyed it. So yeah, thank you for inviting me again. Yeah,

really honored to be on here, mate. If this episode gave you something to think about,

a mindset shift, the tool or just a bit of fire, can I ask a small favor? Share it. If you could

share it, that would mean a lot to me. Share it with someone wherever you are in the world.

Share it with someone else in the world. And let's keep building better teams, stronger cultures

and deeper connections.