Appoche Production. Welcome to another episode of Brave Always the CEO Series. This series we launch into the new world of brave leadership. Happy people create happy businesses, true emotionally intelligent leadership. I've picked up vombit once on our about our four flight and everybody thought, well, if it's good enough for him, I can do it.
Now.
We will be joined by culture and leadership experts and some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us the truth behind their brave leadership journeys. Welcome to another episode of Brave Always the CEO series. So this is actually a pretty special one for me today. If you're from Queensland, or you're an ERL fan, or probably any sporting fan. This man needs no introduction, but he's played more than three hundred n Ral games, twenty nine Origin matches, thirty
two Tests for the Kangaroos. Is a delim Award winner, two time Premiership winner and a Rugby World Cup winner. He's Alarican of football, the guy who once had a giant curly mop, the guy I have seen way too many times in a budguy, smuggler, but most importantly, someone I've had the privilege of being friends with nearly fourteen years. What come, mister Sammy Thurday.
Thank you for the backhanded compliments. I appreciate it.
I had to mention the hair because.
I do have to. I didn't win a Daly Am.
I didn't.
I want a Dallly m Backrower of the Year. The Daly is well, the Dallim is the best player in the whole league. I want a positional I.
Just wanted to correct about it. We'll just let that go.
No, no, because I told you I wasn't going to lie to you today on this.
All right, all right, fair enough? Where to start, Sammy? This was an interesting one for me because I have known you for so long and I thought this would be super easy.
You know me, but you don't.
Actually, Oh rah, well, Sammy born in Sydney, moved to Townsville when you're four years old. I didn't know all this stuff. And that's where you grew up in North Queensland. Growing up in Townsville. What's the best thing about Townsville?
For me? As a kid? Growing up in Townsville was great. I was a sporty kid and there was a lot of different sports around. I tried my hand at everything. Again, having a lot of brothers to kind of place with. We had cricket bats, basketball hoops, baseball bats. My poor mum and dad. We had all the correct equipment when it came to playing those sports as well. So there's probably some still some holes in the firebroough sheeting in the back of the house where the cricket ball the
baseball had hit the at the wall. I probably do need to get up there and fix that for mum and dad.
They still have there.
Yeah, Mum and Dad's still in the house that we kind of grew up in. You know. When we first moved to Townsville, we're in defense housing, so we had some pretty cool houses. And then Dad retired from the Air Force and brought a house out at Kelso and they've been living in that same house ever since.
Yeah. Right, What was the worst thing about growing home Townsville The heat?
It was always hot up there. I think now getting out of Townsville and seeing different places. I've got some fantastic mates who still live in Townsville and it's a beautiful place and I love going back there and visiting.
But I do call Brisbane home now. I've lived in Brisbane longer than I ever did live in Townsville, but yeah, you can kind of feel a little bit stuck there sometimes, and I think, yeah, moving to Brisbane as a seventeen year old kid, you kind of open your eyes up to the possibilities that there's a lot more things out there. So again, beautiful little place forever growing Townshill and it will always have a lovely place in my heart.
Was your dream to be drafted to the Cowboys?
Yeah, essentially I played for Towns or Brothers. Towns of Brothers literally was out the back of the grandstand of the old stadium Dairy Farmer Stadium, Stockland Stadium one three hundred smiles Stadium. It had a few different names, a few different sponsors over the years. But yeah, I was lucky enough to play a few games there as a young kid, Curtain Raisers to a couple of the Cowboys games and would have loved to have been picked up by the Cowboys, but it just didn't work out that
way and insane that too. Moving to Brisbane gave me the chance opportunity to grow up and change and probably needed to get off the teat a little bit.
I mean, you're a strong lad. Was fretty like do you get sort of forced into footy. Was it a footy family, Like, did you just have to play footy or was that your thing? No, you've done something else.
It wasn't my thing.
Actually wasn't your thing.
From the age of six to the age of twelve, we participated in the little athletics. Our club was called the Appeross Pandas Mum and dad volunteered and worked pretty hard. I think mum was a treasurer at one point there. But yeah, our small little club ran out of money and it ceased to exist. So I've probably still got some junior records at yeah, yeah, sixty meter hurdles still shot put. Wow.
As a long term friend of yours, imagining you leaping over a hurdles not an image really strongly.
I used to love actually, I used to love hurdles when I was a kid. Really yeah. Yeah, that's a strange sport. It is a strange sport. But yeah, I wanted to go the Olympics when I was a kid. That was my dream and goal. If it wasn't for Upper ross Pandas shutting down, I wouldn't never played rugby league.
So well, speaking of like a big part of growing up your mum and dad. So your dad is obviously toy straight Aunger and your mum if I read coruickly and I've met your lovely mum and dad. Mum's from a farm girl from mister Australia.
Farm girl from Western Australi.
Yeah, I mean both very like your dad is, like I would say, from what I've made of him, like just the sweetest man. Like I feel like a lot of your temperament must come from him. What did you learn from mom? Because mom's a strong woman.
My mum taught us how to fight, and she taught us how to kick a footy. So again, farm girl from Western Australia, so she grew up in shearing sheds. Yeah, she knew how to fight with the best of them. She always said, ye, let them have three punches first and then you lay them out after that. Yeah, she's a wild one, but at the end of the day, she is the softest human being ever. She's all front. But my grandfather, Arthur, he pretty much worked on the farm till the day he passed away. He had four
daughters to help him out on the farm. I think Mum's reasoning why she joined the air Force was because she didn't want to live that farm life anymore, so she kind of joined the air Force and that's where she met dad. Dad wanted to travel and get out of the Torres Strait and moved down. I think they were based out at Wagga Wagga there for a little
while and that's where they met. Yeah, right, her dad was doing a four hundred meters running around the track with his shirt off and beautiful chocolate man.
He is a beautiful chocolate man, speaking of wench like. Obviously, Mum and Dad have very different cultural backgrounds. Yeah, so did sort of coming from that mixed race family growing up in Townswold. Was that a big deal and no big deal at all?
Probably see an understanding a lot more now as a an adult, But we were kids. We kind of just went about it. But I could still remember Mum getting a perm once because she just wanted to have curly hair like us kids.
Are you serious?
But again, you know, this is early nineties. There is a few more kind of mixed race families in Townsville than certain other places. But you know, still Mum would get people looking at her and see, I just thought
it was the best thing ever. Because I kind of lived the best of both worlds, and my dad with a rich cultural heritage from the Torres Strait, and then my mum, you know, she was a staunch farmer from Western Australia, and I didn't see a lot of it, but I'm sure there was probably some stairs and stuff that both mum and dad would have had to have copped in the chin and just went about their ways.
I'm un sure if anything was ever said to them about being a mixed race couple, but there's always going to be people out there that are going to cast their judgment on people.
Did you ever wonder like where did you identify culturally? Like?
Oh, that was probably my biggest struggle ever was I was too black to be white and I was too white to be black sometimes, So you know, that was a little bit of a struggle that I went through, especially through my teens, and not knowing where you belong, not knowing where you fit in. And I think that's probably why I leaned so much into my sport. And I going only speak personally for myself. I didn't encounter
any racism when it come to sport at all. I was disabled to go out there and enjoy all the sports that I loved. There was no judgment passed on me at all. So you know, when racism creeps into sport, I think it's absolutely terrible because it's always been such a great equalizer for everyone where we've given everyone the chance and the opportunity to show their ability and I think if their ability is great and they're chosen sport,
what they should be praised for it. So I didn't experience any myself, but.
Yeah, good, I agree sport is the great equalizer. So you're seventeen years old when you get drafted to the Broncos, I have to ask this, how does it work? Do you a phone call or does like someone drive your house and like there's balloons, like what happens.
It's a bit of a weird process. So there was a few different recruiters that came up to towns and literally sat in our house and had a cup of tea with Mum and dad and a few different conversations. But I think when the Broncos came calling, it was a perfect fit. And again the ability to stay in Queensland.
So growing up in a big family environment where four brothers, he had friends and family uncles and Arnie's that would just pop in and come over for dinner and a cup of tea and come and stay a couple of nights and whatever. I grew up in a really really big family environment, so I didn't want to move to Sydney or move down to Melbourne. They were just going to be too far and then you know, cost to
travel and all those types of things. So when the Broncos came calling, I was super pumped to get the opportunity to play for them, and I actually signed my Broncos contract in the car park of the old Dairy Farmer Stadium, which was a big Yeah, it kind of a big fe to the Cowboys at that point in time,
but they had no space for me up there. I just knew that the opportunity to go to Brisbane and play with some of the players that were already on the roster was probably why I end up having the career that I have, you know, and being coached by Wayne Bennett, having the mentors at the time he was a coach at the time, having mentors, you know, my first year at the club, Andrew g was still there, he still had Gordon Tallis was still around and then
you had Gordon the Raging Ball, Yeah, Shane Webke, Petrosisiva and these guys were Queensland Australia players at that point in time. So I think, yeah, in hindsight, the move was essential for my career and if I didn't do it, I probably wouldn't have had the career I had. But looking it was a pretty cool moment that the team that didn't want me, I'm signing a contract in the car park of their stadium. Yeah.
But so you're still seventeen though, right, Like, how much pressure did you film that moment? You're going to have to move away from where you lived. There's a lot of pressure in young people that coming through at that age.
Yeah. Well I wasn't on that. I didn't have the biggest contract in the world. On my first side. There was a few like NRL bonuses in there if I had made the NL team and played in a game, but they were probably a lot higher than my contract was in all honesty. So I think I got like medical and then I had to apply for some living away from home allowance and also some rental assistance. But I think my first contract was like five thousand dollars plus those things, and then if I played in an
NL game was like a five thousand dollars bonus. I knew that I was coming down to play in the colts, so they're under nineteens competition and my goal in that first year was just to play a bit of reserve grade footy if I could. So we played for the tom of Clydes Dales at that point in time, that was our feeder team in the NRAL, and I just wanted to hopefully get a few games playing for them, and it all kind of happened pretty quickly.
My dead because four years later you wants win a premiership.
I debut was my first year at the club, which was kind of funny because my first two months of training, so I came down first to November, were just just before I literally finished high school, graduated, went to our graduation and then the next week I'm in Brisbane training And in my first year I debuted for the Broncos.
I was eighteen in one month. Once I had a taste, I was hooked, and it's funny the goals always changed and you always move in the posts, and you know, my goal was just to have a solid season in the colts. In two thousand and three and play a few games with Queensland Cup if I could, and I that tick that, and then I ended up debuling for the Broncos. I was like going to after So next year I played one game. Next year I want to
play five games. Okay, the following year, I want to be more consistent, play more games, maybe even get a few starting positions. So forever, just reassessing goals, figuring out what they are and trying to achieve them and push hard. And yeah, very very early in my career, two thousand and six we won a premiership. I was twenty one, and yeah, it was probably the best year of my rugular league career. They booed for Queensland that year. I had my twenty first birthday in Origin camp, which was
a lot of fun. Yeah, and then we won the premiership and then off the back of the team's success side then get the opportunity to play for Australia at the end of the year. I think it was a Try Nations series with New Zealand and England. I think I played twenty minutes for Australia in the game that I dibuoed, and and that was enough. I'd kind of I'd done everything in one year, which is pretty crazy and pretty hectic. So and at such a young age as well.
Such a young age, I mean, what was it about the Broncos in the two thousand and six the year and the premiership? What were they doing?
Like?
Is there something that a team does that you sort of go That was the difference between why we won that year and while we did in another years.
I look at the team now and I call it our lasagna team because we had layers to it. When you put a lasagna together and if it all matches, it's.
Just thinking about lasagna now.
Yeah. See, that's why I brought it up, because I know how much.
You love food. Yeah, thanks, but yeah.
Yeah, every little bit of a lasagna had to come together for us to win that game. So we had layers and depth within our team. So we had our senior players and in your Darren Lockears and Shane Webke, Petro Simin receiver, Brad Thorne, and then you know the next kind of guys underneath them. You had Corey Parker, you had Dane carl or Brent Tate, guys that had
kind of been there and done some stuff. In the inner already, Justin Hodges as well, and then you had the next kind of younger guys that were coming through trying to have a crack. And it was myself, David Staggs, Daris, you had Carmichael Hunt. We had such a well balanced yeah, yeah, and you know, we had the experience of our older guys. We had some guys that had been around and had a taste of representative football as well, those middle chunks of guys and then the bottom guys that the youth.
You know, myself, Carmichael, David Staggs, Darius Board. Where were all these young kids bright eyed? I think it was that was Darius's first year in the NL. We played every game from Round one all the way to the Grand Final, and you think you're going to be there every year once you're a young kid, because we still had majority of our squad around for a little while after that. That was well, that was Shane Weep his last game for the Broncos ever, and what a way to
send out a legend. But you know, I just thought it was going to be easy and we're just going to get to the Grand Final every year, and it just kind of doesn't happen that way.
No, what does happen when you lose games? Like I'm always fascinated what was happening in the locker room? Like is it a bit ted lasso like, you know, is it positive thinking, lift you up, you're all doing well boys, or is it sort of frustration and anger? Like what does it way towards? Or is it just depend on the coach?
Well, everyone has their own different emotions, you know, from a coach's point of view, like sometimes less is more. I think Wayne Bennett talks about, you know, you've probably only got two really good sprays every year and that's it. So you know, where you come in, you absolutely rip them a new one. I can still remember a moment in time where Wayne Bennett came in. We were all sitting in our little semicircle shape. His chair was right in the middle. He sat down on it, and then
he looked at everyone. He stood up, and he walked out. Didn't say a thing. We kind of knew at that point in time.
Yeah, that's a silence, Yeah, like the naughty kid.
Yeah, but no, different people process it differently. Yeah, so some guys in the locker rooms want to talk about everything that happened in the game and really break it down then and there when it's fresh in their mind. Other guys want to get away and just kind of, you know, we'll reassess on Monday type of thing. So, yeah, different players is it differently, and you've got to kind of know and understand which players are going to want to have a talk to you about it, which players
are going to want to just brush it off. And there are certain players that can kind of it's just the game.
So the v of Brave is vulnerability. And I think actually you've been incredibly vulnerable publicly, especially in the last few years, about a number of things that we'll talk about it later, but I want to talk about a difficult moment your footy career. So obviously you were put into captain c and then I think it was for two seasons. Was its roughly? Yeah, like a rough a year and a half, and then obviously you step down. I'm assuming that was probably one of your more vulnerable
moments or overwhelming moments. Can you talk me through that a bit.
Yeah, I had to take over the captaincy after Darren Lockyer. Yeah, and I joke about it now, Jesus, I must have been a good captain because they needed two to replace me, so Corey Parker and Justin Hodges were my replacements after that point in time. But I really struggled being the captain of the team because I was unsure on what type of leader I wanted to be within the team. Without realizing I already was a leader and that's why
I was chosen to be captain. And in hindsight, it's easy to look back and go, you're an idiot, but you know, I tried to be every type of leader. I tried to be the guy that was inspirational on the field. I tried to be the guy that spoke up at all the meetings. I tried to be the
guy that checked in on everyone. And then there were times when I would walk around the chains rooms for a game and I would have a conversation with sixteen players about what their job was and if they were ready to go, and without having the same conversation with myself. I probably struggled a little bit too with not having
strong leaders around me as well. You know, previously, when Darren Lockey was a captain, he had some great players around him still, and there was a bit of a change and a shift at the club with coaching staff, and I really felt if Wayne Bennett is at the Broncos at the time, I'm the captain. I think I captained the team for a long period of time, but you know, the support just wasn't there. So it was
very tough decision. This is again, that was one of my goals to captain the Broncos and I got to achieve it, which is brilliant and I will always be known as a Broncos captain. But I wish I really focused on myself more than other people when it came to my captaincy and it was tough to front the media and stand down.
And how did you get through that?
I disappeared for a couple of days. Yeah, Rachel and I and the girls, we went up the Sunshine Coast for a couple of days and just kind of laid low and got my head around it and just needed to do some grounding.
Did you want to be like, screw it, I'm not playing foot anymore.
Don't worry. I've had plenty of those moments throughout my career where you know, the easy option is to walk away, And again, at the age of twenty one, I had achieved everything I wanted to anyway, you know, with the list you mate, except for captaining the club. You know, I had kind of ticked every box already, so I needed some time to process it and get away, spend some time with family, some close friends, and then lucky enough to have a game the following weekend.
The thing is is that you are a natural leader. I mean people always think of you that way, title or not. I just think you kind of carried on to be a leader of the Broncos leader.
So yeah, did.
It really matter that you had the title or not?
Well, that's the hardest thing. Sometimes as soon as someone tells you you're a leader, Yeah, it tickles your ego a bit. Yeah, and then you think you have to start doing things that's different. Yeah, when Dale telling you you're a leader for the things that you already do, and you know, I look back on that now and now I just try to be the best version of Sam thought I can, whether it's doing the TV stuff I do, whether it's the ambassador roles and that I do,
the charity work that I do. I just tried to be the best version of myself, and that's all I could be. And if people see that as being a leader, thank you. I appreciate that.
In footy when you were obviously earmarked when Darren was leaving to take over captaincy, do you get put through some kind of training or development to become a leader?
Not necessarily, not at all, which.
I find fast Yeah. Yeah, because as a leadership coach, I'm like, you can't just throw people into that.
Yeah, And that's why I said that support system wasn't there. If there was a different coaching staff there at the time, I'm sure it would have been different. There was a few changes happening at the Broncos, from coaching staff to all the office staff. Things were changing at the club and it was a time of big change. I think this might have been the first time that Wayne left
the club. Yeah, so you know, he was the inaugural coach, had been there from day one, right, he'd been there from nineteen eighty eight, and yeah, he kind of everyone find was weird times.
Forair, weird times. I want to talk about authenticity. It was interesting one because I know a number of sides of you, right, yeah, well your split persnel, and it is first knowing that people who then will know they might know you personally, will ask about you, or they have an idea in the head who you are and what you're like. And I know you know this, right, So do you believe it's easy to be yourself truly yourself all the time?
I have many selves though, and I think we all.
Have many I was actually trying to contact those, right, because sometimes they want to put you in this category of like Sammy the comedian, you know, which unfortunately you are quite fuck Do.
You remember that we're at that rooftop at one time and I was up on stage speaking yes, and this was the first time you've ever saw at work y like work properly worked, And what did you say to me?
I was like so impressed. I was like, oh my god, you're not You're actually I was gonna say, was you're really good at this?
Yeah, we're all smart at work, aren't we.
That's correct, we don't go there. But yeah, there's a different side to me, you're right. So I think what I was reflecting on was when people go is he always like that loud, funny you know, singing clean Dion songs, you know, his pants are always off kind of character, I'm like, yeah, he's definitely that. And he's like, then is he the other guy who can be butit quiet and reflective. Yeah, he can be that too.
I think Rachel gets the same questions asked. People think that I'm intense because they knew me from football and the way that I played on the football field. But that was sam At the football player. And I think growing up with brothers is like I always back my brothers. I've got a tattoo on my chest it says one brother bleeds, all brothers bleeds. So when I played football, I was, you know, in New South Wales known as third man thirday. He would come into every push and shove. Yeah,
but it doesn't mean that I'm that intense. At home. I'm a father, my husband. I've got many hats, and I think we all have many hats. And I show up in every situation that I'm in my genuine self for that situation. So I have many genuine.
Selves mileon, Yeah, very genuine. I like that.
Yeah, and I think that's what we have to be. You have to show up to every occasion being our genuine selves selves myself.
Yeah, A good answer, actually, all right, So that's good, alright. Twenty eighteen. The thing you've been doing your whole life comes from end. Yeah, all right, and I was round fit period, remember going your last game and all the weeks and the T shirt like and there's not a sporting person. I honestly don't believe it doesn't go through a period of like, well what now or who am I? And I can only imagine given you started so young, that was the same journey for you. Yeah, so what
surprised you about that period? What did you think it was going to be like? And then wanted it actually.
Turned out to I didn't know. I had no idea. You think you're prepared, but you're not really. I start again started playing rugby league at the age of twelve. All my friends at school played it. I think I made the Townsville team in my first year and we went and played against Cans and Mackay. I think the following year made the North Queensland team and then I
was like, well, actually you are right at this. You know it was a great way to focus anger and frustration on other people and you could do it legally on the forefield. I think that's why my mum loved it so much. But I was fifteen when a school teacher at Kerwin High School recognized some of the talents that I had as a rugby league player. His name's George Barlett. Absolutely love him. Spoke to him on the phone the other day. He's a deputy principal now at
bean Lee High School here in Queensland. But if it wasn't for him and recognizing some of the talents I had and pretty much giving me a kick in the ass, reiterated to me that I was super talented at rugby league and if I actually gave it a crack and really trained hard and applied myself, that I could probably have a professional career. And he said to me, I'll show up every day. You show up. And he had to show up anyway because he was a teacher. He had the keys of the gym. But for the next
kind of two years. It's in grade eleven and grade twelve at school. I showed up and I did the training early in the morning, and I had another friend, Bevan Cameron, who would pick me up because it was kind of you know, Mum had a household full of My two younger brothers were there at the time. My two older brothers had gone but she's like, I can't drive you into school and then come back home and get the boys ready to dive back in again. So had a friend picked me up, Evan Cameron. He picked
me up in him and his dad. We went to training every morning, got ready for you know, footy, and I needed a bit of a push. I needed a bit of a kick in the ass, and George was a guy that did that for me. It was absolutely push in the right direction that I needed.
So it's just so much though about the impact that a good teacher or mentor can have on a child, right because on the other side of the spectrum.
There's a lot of shit teachers too. Yeah, and a few as well. I loved science and biology at school. I loved it and like fascinated with the human body. But I had a science teacher who was nice to me, and I was like, oh fuck science. That I never did it again.
You see. I had an art teacher who told me at eleven, laughed at my artwork, which is subjective, right, isn't it? Isn't it and said to me, you're terrible at art. And I never got over it, and I quit anything creative until this day. I still say like, if pictionary comes out, everyone in my team, I'm a terrible drawer. Yeah, and it's like such a big impact.
Yes, no, so true. So you got to think from the age of fifteen, after someone you know, giving me the confidence enough to go, actually I am talented to the age of I can't even do the mask. But anyway, so from the year two thousand to the year twenty eighteen when you retired, my whole identity was attached to being a rugby league player. So for eighteen years of my life was like that's who I was, that's what
I did, and that's who I am. So I think walking away from rugby league at that point in time was super hard because I still you know, I probably kicked myself in the art for this one, but I still thought I had a couple of.
Good years left in me before you retire.
Yeah, so I still reckon I could have played a couple more years of football.
So why did you retire?
Because I was stubborn and didn't want to leave the Broncos. For me, there was this loyalty attach to the Brisbane Broncos, and I think the prestige of being known as a one team player really, so I can rewind back to there was a big split when I was a kid with all my mates from school and then all the guys that I played football with so at a club level when I was a junior coming through at Brothers. All my friends from my primary school played at Brothers.
When we got to high school, the private school kids all played for Brothers, and then all the state school kids where I went to Kerwin State High School, they all played for Centrals. I told my mom I want to go and play for Central's and moms like, no, you can't. You go to stay loyal, that's your team.
You play for Brothers. So this is ingrained me. So I didn't want to go to England when I retired because I'd had work that was lined up for me with Channel nine and a few different things as well, and I thought, if I go to England for two years, I'll be out of side, out of mind. The next person retires and you know, that job that I did
have a Channel nine is gone. And the people that retired at the same time and roughly around the same time as Jonathan Thurston, Cameron Smith, East Layer, Cooper Kronk, so all the media jobs would have been gone.
It's very true.
Yeah, and I come back and then I'm working as a bloody stop go sign guy.
They have pretty good money, so.
It's super hard having something wrapped up in your identity for such a long period of time. And then you know, having this internal wrestle of actually I can still play, but they're not wanting to sign with another club because of this bloody loyalty. I'm as loyal as a kick dog. At the end of the day, I'll keep coming back.
It's so hilarious to say this, but you kind of go off into the wilderness into the real world, and you you have your struggle, so you pack on the weight, you don't train as much, you probably drink too much. You know, all these different things that you weren't allowed to do while you're playing. True, you know you could do. It's like, oh, it's Wednesday, I can have a beer, and then you have two beers and then.
So like my normal Yeah.
So bad habits start creeping in. And then when the bad habits start creeping in, your mindset's shot. Because you are institutionalized when it comes to being a professional sporting stuff. You are told where to be, what to where, we had a full time dietician. You eat these things, you know, you go to the gym that they've done your program
for you. Even to the point like towards the end of my career, we got fancy and we didn't have to even bring our own tails to training anymore because they had towels and they washed the towels for you.
Yeah, it was like usual to leave home all over again.
Yeah, pretty much and start again, start again. And I think that was my biggest downfall when I retired, was that there was a lack of routine with what I was doing with my life, and it was just like I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do all the things. Yeah, you know, I want to go skiing. When to Japan? And then the world shutdown.
After that, Oh that was terrible time.
It was a terrible timing.
At home too. You can't even do the dreams.
No, I can't even do a lot of the things. So, yeah, there was so much that kind of coincided with end of twenty eighteen, retire had a family holiday over in Japan, went skiing, came back, the world shutdown. I was just like it was probably the worst time ever to retire in all.
Those things properly.
But again, I have to kind of lean back on that resilient space.
And I was going to say, what did you learn about yourself during that?
Oh I'm a suck but cow, but you need to. I think you need times where you're suki and you need times when sit with it, sit with the shit you do. You have to sit with it, you have to deal with it, and you have to try to move on. Am I perfect? Now?
You talk about the fact that when you leave footy and it's not luck, I don't think. I think it's talent. You are talented in front of a camera. And you know you've done radio, You've done you know, TV, You've done lots of gigs, speaking gigs.
I worked at those things too.
I know you're actually really good at it. Like, do you realize how good you are in it? I've had this conversation before, and I feel like I didn't sink in. I was like, like, you sit here, and I think you could do whatever you want in that space if you just made it happen, like in a thing.
There's a new show coming, yeah, Thurday Night Live. It's called when I was playing, I was so nervous to do radio, so I went and did it. The TV stuff, I was so nervous to do TV stuff, so when I did it, we used to say it to our
girls all the time when they were little. It takes one second to be brave, and you know, yeah, I find it really sad now for some of our current NRL stars, and actually any sporting stars is from a broadcasters point of view, the stuff that I used to do with Channel nine was me being my genuine self and having fun. But we squashed that Now as soon as anyone shows any type of character or you know, a bit of gusto about them, we squashed them straight away.
And it's so sad to see because if that happened to me when I was playing, I wouldn't do any of the I think.
Someone mentioned you with the Last of your Kind because the stuff that you came out sometimes is on TV. Like for some people it was what they look forward to at the end of the game and the show, and it brought a bit of joy to a bit of misery. So you're right, I don't think it'd be tolerated in that now.
I've always tried to find balance with everything that I do, so again any of the TV stuff, any of my speaking engagements as well, again showing up as my genuine selves, and I try to bring little bits of you know, you don't want to go to see someone speaking on stage about leadership and the this is our leader does this is? It's like I have fun with it.
Yeah.
When I talk about leadership, I talk about the different leaders that I've had throughout my career and what made them the good leaders that they were. I tell football stories when it comes to leadership talks because it's what I can relate to. And it's also so easy to
tell those stories, isn't it. Yeah. I've come to realize now that I have so many transferable skills that came out of my rug league career that I now implemented my life and you know, hopefully they're helping me out and I'm still paying the bill sets Okay.
Speaking of bravery, and I would have described you at times as being very stoic like sort of especially going through that period of transition for your career, instead of everything's sort of you know, oh yeah, it's all good.
It's all good. You know, see me, everything's all right, and then you go into something really vulnerable and you go and you know, put a full series podcast out and talk about actually how tough it's been, and you talk about some real big topics around suicide and depression. I mean, even the people who know you really well were like, oh wow, where that from?
There? It is because it was deep down? It was obviously deep.
So what did it mean for you to share it? Like? What made you decide to open up about that stuff?
I was doing some therapy at the time and opening up to my therapist and just through the conversation thought it would be beneficial to share those things again. You talk about how many people ask you to see me like that intents all the time and crazy and whatever. People ask those questions all the time. And it was to shy Upe as one of my genuine selves and tell a couple of stories. You can go and listen to the podcast.
I recommend it.
It's called We Are Human And there's a poem on them that I wrote about the Boy on the Wall and like that was something I buried deep and again going through a little bit of struggle. I can't even remember exactly what age I was, but yeah, I was going through a tough time again, lack of identity, didn't know where I fit in, didn't know what I wanted
to do with my life. And I rode to the Kelso Dam, which is not far from my house, and towns were being pretty dry, where the damn spillway was sat on the wall, and just kind of was contemplating my own life and yeah, yeah, and then pretty damn close to just leaping, jumping off and ending it there. But so glad that I gave myself a chance to see the next day, because.
Yeah, what made you get on your bike and right home.
I was more worried in my mind of what my family would have gone through. So I'm glad that that was the last thought that I had. Was the you know, the literally fuck moment about you. Your family's the people that are still here are the ones that have to deal with your actions at the end of the day. They're the ones that I left behind. And I didn't want to put that burden on my parents, because yeah, I didn't have the most privileged life. It was pretty tough when Dad got out of the Air Force and
struggled to find himself after a while. Again, you know, similar my dad. He joined the Air Force to travel and see Australia and do some different things. And he was in the Air Force for twenty one years and then I think he had a couple of little odd jobs there for a while. He worked at a chemist, he worked for a furniture place where he just delivered furniture, and then he end up starting to be a teacher. It showed me that you can do multiple jobs in
your life. You don't have to just be put in one basket forever. And you know, it just showed me that you can achieve anything in your life and you don't have to just be stuck in one box forever.
When you rode back that day, though, from what I understand, you didn't tell your parents what you were going to do, right, so they just found out probably in the last couple of years.
Yeah, I had. I was sweating profusely. Yeah, I was so nervous when I had written the poem in twenty nineteen and had done some of the work I needed to do around it, you know, trying to fit in knowing understand that I am loved all those different things. And once I kind of got the poem out, I knew that well, I'm going to do a podcast around this, so I'm going to get it out there and put
it out there. I need to make sure that my parents know before yep, I do, because I want them to hear it from me, not from someone else, and talk about tough conversation, but a conversation that needed to happen, and to see how supportive mom and dad were and they had no idea and I was a little angry kid and didn't understand my hormones to the point where Mum brought me a boxing back when I was a kid. She would know if I had a day at school if one of my brothers was annoying me, because I
would be out there. I'd be punching the bag as hard as I could. But it was a conversation I needed to have a little bit for mom and dad, but more for myself because the burden of holding onto that for so long was massive.
I think there's a theme that I look back and go, what did Sammy need in those moments in his life? Right like you think about it because you're a parent now, what did you need from your parents back then? What did you need from the coaching stuff back then? Was it someone to be able to talk to you more about how you're feeling?
Oh, definitely. It's not our parents at the end of the day too, so you know, and I never placed any blame on them for our childhood at all, because they were just doing what they were taught, how they learned how to parent. We can only learn from the way that we were parented, come up with our own styles of parenting and continue to show up.
You're cruising high speed towards forty as she's twelve months away, isn't it all less? So it's a milestone. I know, as a woman who's forty two, right, a lot of stuff changes. What are you not bothered by now that there's a young football player you see to get worried about, like, you know, self doubt. I think I've read a bit about you at times where oh, yeah, you know you had that self doubt, Like has that got better as you got older or worse?
It's different self doubt now though, Okay, you know, any little idea I have or business opportunities or they think you're forever doubting yourself and thinking, you know, can I do it?
Yeah?
But that's probably something that I do need to work on. There still is a little bit of self doubt that creeps in, and I think it creeps in for most people when it comes to anything, trying something new, doing something new, it's always scary, but you know, you just got to go back to that old one second to be brave, and you just got to leap and have a kraken. The thing that I worry and I'm concerned about is like, I want to be around for my
kids when they have kids. So for me coming into my forties, I need to make sure that all right, I need to make sure I'm ticking a lot more boxes when it comes to the health side of things.
I need to make sure that I see a doctor regularly and make sure that I trained so hard for so many years that I can easily use it as an excuse sometimes not too yeah, right, And I heard someone the other day talk about we would do anything for our kids, and sometimes we say we would die for our kids, but we need to start living for our kids. So that's probably something that I need to work on going forward.
A little Bernie might have told me that you might be dabbling. I mean, you're a big kid yourself. Let's be honest, and it turns out you might like writing kids books too.
Yes, I do. Actually, that's got some hopefully that will be coming out very soon. So I'm working. I'm working very closely with the which are the former Origin Greats, and they run a program in primary schools called the ARTI program, which is an acronym for Achieving Results through Indigenous Education. I would love to get these books out in January to start the new school year. I've been sitting on them for a little while and they're just
Indigenous tales that I'd heard as a kid. And the whole idea is when I was a kid, I struggle to read now still. I remember I had to do something on the Footy Show once and they had the telepropter and I couldn't read it, and I just like froze on TV and being quick with it. I just kind of knew what we were talking about and I just spoke about it anyway without reading what was on the thing. So, you know, probably undiagnosed dyslexia. I probably
got add as well. But I remember being a kid in going to school and not finding or seeing any books that I wanted to read in the library. You know, a lot of the things I've spoken about today that lack identity is like I wanted to read the dream Time Stories, but there's no Torres Strait Dreamtime Stories or all stories of the Torres Straits. So I've got a story about Gary the Garfish.
Gary the garfis Garry.
Garfish and how he broke his nose. I've got a story about the grandmother Turtle, how she was sick and tired of swimming around the world, and she found a sandbar and she laid down and she became an island, and all of her kids come back and they lay their eggs on the island now. So it's about motherhood and keeping your family close. And then I've got another book, which is I got to finish it, which is about the Pearl chall It's about bullying at the end of the day, so about inner beauty.
Wow, I cannot wait to see these come out. This is great. I love it. Seemy. I hope you realize that you're a big advocate for the indigenous space and also for mental health. And you'll never know the answer to this, but somewhere out there, someone's listened to something and gone it's okay to say this because Sammy does, and someone's gone, do you know what? I wanted to get to know my culture more because Sammy's doing this. So I hope sometimes you remember the impact you're having
on people. I think sometimes it can get lost a bit. You don't always know it.
I do always tell people when I do a speech, and I always introduce myself, and I always say, well, if you don't know who I am, please don't google me.
Because.
Half of the stuff that comes up if you giggle me.
Is nonsense as I read.
So yeah, I hope that people are getting their information about Samada from podcasts, from seeing me on TV, from books, all different things.
I'm going to let end with one question. Let's go back to seventeen year old SAMMI. Yeah, you're good Moper hair. Then I do miss your hair. If I'm honest, I'll be the end of the year.
I'll get it fixed, little.
Flitting there in the front.
Yeah, I'll get some plugs soon.
But so seventeen year old Sammy football is off the table. In fact, all professional sports off the table. It's not going to happen, right, What else would SEMy have gone and done? If you look back now and all that was done. What career path might I be finding you in now?
Well, A lot of the subjects I did at school were the direction I was going in was a building and construction industry. So eleven and grade twelve I did graphic design, I did trading business mass, I did mental work, I did woodwork. And we had a course at school too that we did was called a building construction course where we learn different skills when it come to building. So I'll probably be in the building industry. I'd probably own my own business. I'd be as big as hutches,
I reckon. I love a flat pack challenge.
I'm so glad you've told me that because I don't and I need someone to do mine.
I liked the idea of sometimes not following the instructions.
Either, great, that could just go.
It's cool. It's a puzzle and you've got to put it together and figure out how it all fits.
And I'll be bringing you for the next flight pack. It's been a pleasure, Sammy. Thank you so much for chatting today.
Thank you