¶ Kim Keedle's Journey into Physiotherapy
Kim Ketele, Welcome to the Heartiness Podcast.
Thanks for having me, so may you.
You've got had a very interesting career, pretty non standard for somebody who started as a physio. Probably in fact, you probably landed the dream job. And tell our tell our listeners. Just take us through a kind of a tour of your career. Starting at UNI. Why did you want to do physio and then ticket from there?
Yeah sounds good. So, yeah, I became a physio. I'm based in Melbourne. Went to the University of Melbourne and studying physio purely because growing up, I'd always had, you know, an interest in sports, and I'd always wanted to work with athletes, so I thought that physio was a nice segue into into that career path, if that makes sense.
Mm hmm.
And really enjoyed the degree.
But I'd say that one of the things that I was a little bit frustrated with on a personal notice that we spent a lot of time in hospitals and doing public health stuff, which is great, that I had.
More of a more of a yearning to learn more about working.
With athletes and and sort of high performance and how you prepare athletes and help them perform their best. So I went then went and studied a master's in strength and conditioning at Edith Cow and you just to add that skill set to my repertoire.
And they, by the way, they they're great, they're great masters really really, I think Regon it's the I Regon, it's the best in Australia. I was going to do it that for a while. What do you call them, Professor Robert Newton Robert, Yeah.
And the head of the course was an American called Greg hath who's very, very experienced in strength and conditioning through America. And then a lady called Sophia and Nympius and who's exquisite if you ever have the chance to see her speak about, especially around female athlete preparation and athlete developments, unbelievable. So I came away from that course feeling like I could now go and work in sports and understand how to.
Prepare athletes and work with athletes, which was great.
From there, like all sort of young Australians do I move over to the UK, because of course you did, you know, we did the opposite to what to what the Northern Hemisphere folks do?
They all move here? But you know, I had a British passport.
So as a young sort of mid mid twenties twenty five, I moved over there. It's a good excuse to travel Europe and see the world and have a broader experience and what you can get in Australia as much as I love Australia and ended up falling into a job working at the University of Leeds, which is about three
hours north of London. I was working there overseeing all of their sports departments, so all of their Olympic athletes, rugby team, netballers, anyone that was on an Olympic pathway or who they deemed to be like a scholarship worthy athlete, which was awesome working with students that have no money. They value your inputs so much. It's just little things that you can do, you know, to really help them, and the appreciation that they have from that is so strong.
¶ Transition to Strength and Conditioning
So I found that super rewarding.
And then through some and Leeds are leads is are cracking place at around the UNI.
Yeah, it's Awesome's got a lot.
Of history in it and stuff like that.
Yeah.
So I guess for your listeners, Leeds is a it's a you know, it's a city, but it's a small enough city that you can still walk across it in fifteen minutes.
Everyone's super friendly.
Northern folk are super friendly in the UK, probably more similar to Australians, i'd say than you know, a typical Londoner. And so so for me moving over there, you know, you can move to London and there's so many Aussies and so many keyways that you can go there, and you can just get very stuck in your friendship groups. But actually me moving to Leeds gave me a real British experience. I created some real, you know, British, really strong friendships with with British people who you know, I'm
going to be friends with for life. So that was that was a really good experience for any personally. I then sort of fell into Formula one. There was a mutual connection through someone I knew. There was a doctor working in Formula one who's an Australian. His name is Luke Bennett. He now lives in Austin and has a
practice over in America. But they were basically looking for a physio or a performance coach to come in and help set up a performance program for a new team called hass Formula one team.
OK.
Yeah, so working with their mechanics and engineers just to help them be healthier and improve on themselves personally, because one of the things about Formula one is, you know, at that time it was a twenty race season. It's now a twenty four race season. So there's a lot of time spent away from home. There's a lot of time traveling, a lot of time spent at airports and in hotels, and you know, you're never in a solid routine where you're eating home cooked meals and these sort
of thing. So it's just a big education piece and creating a program to really help the mechanics and engineers. And then yes, sorry, and I was.
Going to say that the mechanics and engineers they've got to be really switched on as well, right, I mean everybody talks about the athletes, and yes, it's demanding for the athletes, but Jesus, I mean, Mulder sport is probably the one where there's just more data and and instantaneous decisions.
And everything has to be done super super quick.
Right, yeah, spot on.
And so you know, these guys are working long hours, much longer hours than what the drivers are when they're at the track. So you've got the mechanics who are building the car, who are in you know, either super cold garages or super hot garages, working long days. And when I say that, you know, if someone forgets to screw in a bolt, the car can fail. I'm serious about that, and I've seen it happen, you know. So if you have a lapse in concentration when you're a mechanic,
there can be dire consequences. And at the same time with engineers as well, who are making decisions about how the car's built, or they might be making strategy decisions within race, and you've got to split the set second to decide what do we go for strategy A or do we go.
For strategy B.
And if you if you get the wrong decision, that affects the outcome of the race, which then obviously impacts a lot of people. So yeah, it's everyone thinks about the driver, but it is a it is a brutal sport for all.
Of the team that's involved. So it's been fascinating to work in.
¶ Experience in Formula One
And so talk us through your journey through motorsport.
I long have you worked in or did you work in motorshboard and who are you working with?
Yeah, so I was in there for eight and a half years. I still have my toe dipped in a little bit here and there. But so I worked with Hears with their team for a season setting up this program, and then from there I actually started working one on one with one of their drivers, whose name was Roman Grojeon. He was a French Swiss driver. I was with him
for three seasons, which was incredible experience. He was towards the end of his career, so it was nice to work with an athlete who had already spent sort of ten years in Formula one. He then sort of left Formula one and at that time Oscar Piastri, who's a Melbourne boy, a fellow Australian driver who hopefully a lot of your listeners will know about, he was coming into.
Certainly well, I was at sorry, just a quick little interelt. I was at the air one whenever it was here, just recently, and the amount of people with an Oscar of Piastree top on, it's incredible. He didn't even get to start Draus right.
Yeah, So I'll tell I can tell a little bit of a story about that in a few minutes.
But okay. Yeah.
So anyway, so Yes started working with Oscar when he was in Formula two. So Formula two is like a development, a stepping stone into Formula One.
Yeah.
If you're win Formula two, then in principle you're going to become a Formula one driver. And so I was very lucky to work start working with Oscar when he was nineteen in Formula two and we won in his first year and then he progressed obviously to become the McLaren driver that he is. So I worked with Oscar for four seasons and I moved home back to Australia a year ago. After being on the road for eight years, I decided it was time to come back to Melbourne and start setting up ROUTSI.
Yeah, so tell us our little story. Yeah, we'll get into the other hunt.
I mean, it's a bit of a bittersweet story. I still have a very good relationship with Oscar. We get on well in some aspects, is almost like a little brother to me. But prior to the race this year, with all of the things going on in the Middle East, George Russell's performance coach, so the same job that I would do for Oscar, but for George Russell, his performance coach, got court in Gaitar and wasn't able to get a flight to Australia.
So the Tuesday prior to the race this year.
I got a call from George Russell's management team saying, hey, are you and Melbourne? Can you help us out this week with George and be his coach for the weekend. So I text Oscar. Oscar was all like, all okay with it. So I ended up working with George, which in some regards was a great success story because George
went on and won the Melbourne Grand Prix. Right, but I was stood on the grid when Oscar crashed, and on the next to the start finished line was the Oscar Piastre grandstand, so everyone was in his T shirt. The excitement was high and I just turned around after he crashed and saw this, yeah, look of sadness on everyone's face. Massive deflation and even on a personal note from me, right, a massive deflation.
You know.
I was working for George that weekend, but I still
¶ Life on the Road as a Performance Coach
care for Oscar so much, so it was it was such a shame, but.
That's part of life and that's part of professional sports. Unfortunately.
Yeah, it totainly is.
So, so let's talk a little bit about, you know, being on the road and working with athletes. I've got a good friends Jason Stacey, who's the performance coach for.
Arianna as a rank of the tent y.
Yeah, he's the guy with the bald head that where she signs his head and.
Yeah, it's a great party check.
But but yeah, I mean the amount of of of work and preparation and and you know the time changing time zones and and and you know circarean alignment all.
Of this sort.
So just just give us a kind of a bit of a taste of the stuff that these guys have to do. And were a performer coach, you know, where's your remit in terms of.
Preparing these guys.
Yeah, so I guess my role as the performance coach was to take care of all of the oscars or the driver's physical preparation, mental preparation, nutritional preparation, everything outside of the car away from the track, so that then the driver can get into the car and go and
do their job, which is to hopefully drive fast. So it's a very very diverse role where you're taking care of a lot of facets as you touched on Tennis is actually very similar to Formula one in terms of individuals, so you know, you don't really have a big support team where you certainly don't have a locker room full of other footy players that you're sharing that camaraderie with.
But also massive travel schedules.
So Formula one is twenty four races over the course of the season, spanning from sort of February to December. That includes races in Japan, China, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, US, Middle East. So it's global sport and the travel therefore, the travel demands.
Are just so high.
I think they have about thirty jet lag moments over the course of the year, so you know, just constantly fighting jet lag and you know, making sure that you're able to able to overcome that to then go and perform on a weekend. But add in there, you know, adding then media commitments. Formula one is a global sport. I think eight hundred million people watched Formula one last year since since Netflix has sort of brought it into everyone's lounge rooms. It's a massive sport and it's growing
at an astonishing rate. So you know, adding media commitments and then adding marketing commitments as well. Every brand now wants to be associated with Formula One teams. Teams like McLaren and Mercedes have got fifty plus brand partners, which then obviously requires drivers to you know, service those spend time with the brands and the important people there, so you know, adding marketing and media days on top of
¶ Managing Jet Lag and Nutrition
them having to rock up the twenty four races over the course of the year and perform, it becomes a very busy, especially for these young twenty year olds, which is what most.
Of them now, and presumably like when a REUS finishes, I would imagine that a lot of the team and the mechanics they're loading up and they're going to the next venue to get sat.
Up and do all of that.
And I'm guessing the drivers come a little bit later and may be training, then get home for a while and then go to the next places.
But that'd be correct, yeah, spot on, spot on. So it depends where you are in the world. But as a general rule, so during our winter and Europeans summer, there's a bit of a European season where there's maybe eight European races in a row, So in that regards during that time. Yeah, the Formula One drivers get a chance to go home, they'll they'll leave straight away after a race.
A lot of them now live in Monaco.
Because of the tack tacks tacks in the weather.
Yeah that's right. Yeah, the climate is beautiful, is my understanding.
Yeah, but actually it's a it's quite a good community there now because you know there are fifteen or sixteen drivers. There actually a good little community there amongst them, which is quite nice. But anyway, so they'll clear out after a race, go straight back home to Monico. They may have to go to the UK to do some you know, a simulate a day with the engineers or whatever it is, but then they will normally go back to a race on a on a Thursday, whereas the mechanics and the
engineers are traveling for a lot of that time. So yeah, that they certainly get to spend more time at home than probably what the mechanics do.
M No.
There will be quite a few people listening to this sort of corporates who who make travel across time zones.
So so what what can we what can.
Us normal people learn from elite sport in terms of managing jet like.
Like, what's what are some of the strategies that you use.
Yeah, look, and I'll say, you know, there's many ways to skin a cat, and also people tolerate with different things differently as well. But certainly there's some great things that you can do, and you know, websites that you can access or apps that you can access to start planning, pre arrive in new destination, so to start sleeping on the time zone that you'd need to start doing, so just having a bit of a body clock shift. And then there's some nice things that you can do when
you land, and there's some different change trains of thought. Sorry, but basically, when you land, you want to start getting on that time zone as soon as possible, get outdoors in the morning, see sunlight, do a bit of light cardio work, so it might even just be a twenty minute walk or even I'll walk on the treadmill, you know what I mean. But just to get moving, and that's the biggest way to overcome jet lag, I guess efficiently.
Now that's in theory, always easier said than done, but yeah, yeah.
For me, that's the big one.
And as soon as I get somewhere, I try to get right into sunnight and I try to exercise, particularly out doors. Like I think the worst people thinking people can do is land somewhere and just go to the hotailp that's right, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, it depends what time you land, but that's certainly true. Like the worst thing you can do is have a nap for four hours from two to six pm and then you're laying awake at three am. It's
¶ Lessons from Elite Sports for Everyday Life
a lonely it's a lonely, lonely place to be when you're laying in a hotel room at three am staring at the ceiling.
That's time goes slowly when that happens.
And without giving away too many secrets.
So are you trying to get their their their kind of nutrition aligned to sircurity and cycles as well as they're traveling or before they're traveling. You know, you talked about trying to get the sleep match to it. I think when you eat has a big impact as well on metabolism and everything in the body.
Right, it does, absolutely, And look, it depends which athlete you're working with. And you know, when I was working with Oscar, he was still very young in his athletic journey and so therefore you can't throw every bit of information, every tool at them, because they just simply won't be able to take it all on board and therefore you have non compliance. So you've got to try and choose, I guess get the most bank for back about what
you introduce. So sleep schedule is one of the things for us, without worrying too much about the nutrition, but certainly eating timing emals is great. And actually one of the performance coaches from Formula one has since gone and done a PhD in this sort of stuff in sleep science and stuff, and he's actually just released an app called Phase p h A z E okay, which is probably going to be the world leading app in this sort of stuff now. So it's a similar thing to
time shifter. You go in your update your flight details, it then gives you eating sleeping, light exposure, exercise exposure or based on algorithms, which is pretty impressive.
Yeah, that's nice because yeah, when you do a PhD.
And it was actually my PhD supervisor when I was doing then, he said, you need to realize that when you finish your PhD, you're generally a world expert in the area that you're that you're working in, right.
I mean, you spend a lot of time studying it, so yeah, you'd hope.
So yeah, yeah, and you know, you gives me some great advice, he says, you know, when you're doing your PhD, talk to everybody you can and talk to the reach out to the leading professors in your area, because they're very open to talking to you while you're doing your PhD. As soon as you've got it, their doors shut.
I don't want to know about it.
Yeah, no, unless unless you come, unless you're coming back in there live.
That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah, so make the most of it while you're still a student.
Yeah, absolutely so, So tell us this, what what do you think having spent all that time in elite sport and you know, give us what's some nuggetive advice that you have learned from elite sport that can apply to everyday people.
Uh yeah, that's a really good question. I think athletes and every day people.
You know what you're sorry, What you have to remember is that athletes are everyday people. You know, we put them up on a pedestal and yeah, they're high achievers, that's for sure, but at the end of the day, they're just regular people that are doing a job to an extremely high level. Right, So they have exactly the same life challenges as us. They have, you know, exactly the same emotions of us. They react to pressure exactly the same way we do. There's no real difference. But
¶ Visualisation Techniques for Stress Management
I think it's something that we always focus on, especially working with Oscar because he was young.
Is you know, he doesn't need to be perfect overnight.
But what we're doing over the course of three years is we're just trying to improve on improve year on year and get better day by day to help I guess, bring the best version of yourself day by.
Day, if that makes sense. So I think that's the that's the best way to tackle life as well.
In my opinion, is you know, what am I doing different this year that I didn't do last year? To make myself a better person, or to make myself better at my job, or to make myself a better parent or partner or whatever it is. What have I implemented this year to help me improve compared to last year? I think that's a pretty safe way of working.
Yeah, and what about dealing with stress and pressure? All right, what sort of what sort of techniques do you use or do the athletes employ and what can can every day people use as well.
Yeah, yeah, So, I mean I guess that athletes are lucky that they're well resourced. So we worked with very closely with a lady called Emma Murray, who's a probably one of Australia's best mind coaches. She's very successful in AFL, very successful Olympic sport and she's.
Been I've heard of her, Marie, Yeah, you'll know her.
Yeah, and she's been great with Oscar so in that regards, you know, some of the things that have helped him massively is just making sure day to day he has a normal routine in terms of a structured routine. It's not a chaotic life that he's living or trying to keep normality within the chaotic travel schedule that he has, if that makes sense, Yeah, you know he then obviously
he then will also do some visualization. People in day to day world might enjoy putting on some meditation or listening to some music to unwind at the end of the day, or having a pre bedtime routine so that that's consistent. So there's I guess there's many different things that you can do in your everyday life. And then it's just finding out what works for you.
That visualization is really interesting. I mean because you show me a world class athlete. I saw you someone who does visualization, right, and I that that we can all do visualization about, you know, imagining your best self and what do they do or visualize a stressful event and you're dealing with it, and it's pretty it's pretty powerful stuff.
I remember seeing I think it was Jensen Button. This was years ago, and it was a segment about him doing a lap on a race track but visualizing it, right, And so he's visualizing coming up to corner one, you know, coming around corner two, blah blah blah blah blah, and ended up within half a second and his visualization of what the actual race was.
Like, right. Yeah, And it's impressive that they can do that. But that's exactly it. That's exactly it.
And so for OSCO it will be you know, pre race will be doing a ten minute visualization and breathing routine about what's coming up.
To help him prepare for the race.
Yeah, and you're right, it sounds you know, I speak to everyday people about this as well, and it's a concept that sounds funny, but incredibly powerful concept.
Marcus Aurelius, I've got his dary over my shoulder.
Two thousand years ago.
He was talking about visualizing your day or visualizing you know, the the challenges you would come up against and how you're going to help recop them.
So it's been around a long time.
It certainly has, and I think it was Michael Phelps said that at a major meat he used to do.
In R visualization today.
Right, it's like stuff is proper you know, proper training, isn't it.
I mean taking it to another extreme.
Even on top of that, Adam Petty who's a British swimmer, very British swimmer, his coach downloaded a stadium full of
¶ Functional Imagery Training and Its Everyday Applications
you know, crowd cheering and put that onto his headphone so he would visualize whilst there was crowd cheering as well, which is obviously you know, that's taking that to an extreme level.
We all can't do it. Yeah, that's the depth.
So you know, you walk into a packed stadium, you've already experienced that level of sound before you. Nothing is unexpected, You've you've prepared for every scenario.
So that's that's taking into the.
Extreme that that is that I mean that that that's pretty important, isn't it. There's guys at Plymouth Unit Portsmouth University have developed functional imagery training where it is basically you use all of your different senses, right, And I actually even think back to my military training in helicopters and we used to do a lot of simulator.
Work where you know, your instructor would throw curve.
Balls at you and all sorts of shit going on an emergency, so as you're just having to deal with all of this ship and you're massively stressed, and the whole idea is inoculation training.
Right, Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, it's.
Prefering you to deal with it.
And I just I don't think that that the everyday person is kind of a word of how useful this stuff can actually be in.
Their every day It's not just for lead athletes.
No, it's not just for lead athletes.
I guess the thing is is, you know, maybe it's harder for the everyday person to get exposure to this. As I said, you know, athletes have got resources that can be thrown at them and money to spend on it. So then it's just about you know, where can you find these resources for an everyday person to help.
Yeah, I think if any of our listeners that google functional imagery training, I'm sure there's some stuff that they can they can do up there.
So so tell me this.
So when did you decide to walk away from Formula One? And a lot of people would be saying, and why did you decide to walk away.
From form Yeah, and a lot of people did say that to me.
You know, I had people when I told finally told people that I was leaving, They're like, what are you doing, dickhead? You've got the best job in the world, you know. So yeah, So I finished at the end of the twenty twenty four season and moved back to Australia, so about twelve months ago, now nearly eighten months ago actually, but I had probably known for a little bit that
¶ The Transition from Formula One to Personal Life
it was coming. I really enjoyed working with Oscar and I really enjoyed working within mcclar and the team, but you know, the pool for me to come back to Australia was too strong. And you know, whilst I loved working in Formula One, when you're working for an individual athlete in that role, you're very much dedicating your entire life to them, which was a sacrifice I was willing
to make, but it obviously couldn't be forever. So I decided, probably at the start of the twenty twenty four season that it was I was getting much closer to the end of my Formula One career than I was, you know, at the start. But then I spoke to Oscar about it through the middle of the twenty twenty four season and he was great about it. He completely understood and I was leaving with the right intentions. So yeah, yeah,
I mean it was a great job, unbelievable job. But at the same time, you know, travel takes a toll, Spending time away from friends and family takes a toll. There's a lot of personal sacrifice in terms of missing mate's weddings, not being at birthdays, all of these sorts of things. And again it was a sacrifice I was very happy to do for that period of my life. But yeah, I'm now thirty six, and you know, at some stage I needed to come home and start living an adult life.
And it's putting some rich.
Yeah, yeah, well, I described my time in the military.
I think my reflection on it, it's a young single month's game, and our young single woman's game and.
Spot on exactly.
And I was single during the time, you know, which was almost needed because having a partner would have made it very difficult or at least made the burden a lot heavier.
Yeah, and I don't think people people appreciate just like any athlete, whether it's a golfer, a tennis player, you know, the ones that travel around these global events very different
¶ The Pressure of Performance in Sports
to be in, like a rugby player or an English Premier League player like me. I mean, some of the rugby players if they're in the you know, their job, the nice team, they're traveling a lot. But it's a lot of pressure on these athletes, isn't it.
Yeah, it is, it is. Yeah, you know, it just adds a different dynamic to it.
You know, Yeah, you're spending time away from your family and you're spending time away from home, and you know there's different not issues, but you know, different pressures that arise when you're doing that. It's just part of the part of the job.
But yeah, it does add a different dynamic for sure.
And you know, yeah, sorry, just one thing something I always reflect on.
Formula one. They're very lucky that they get paid well.
Strives general rule not all of them, but a general rule, they're getting paid well. But you know, I think about tennis players who are outside of the top fifty and you know, we see, okay, you come to the Australian Opening in the first round, you still win sixty grand. That sounds great on paper, but gee, these guys outside of the top fifty, you've got a slug. You know, you're traveling to remote places, you don't know when your
tournament's going to be over. You're having to pay for your training, to calm your coach, to come your manager to com hotels, afairs. It's a it's a brutal wife, it really is.
Yeah, absolutely, And then you know the fact that you're so under the microscope. So you know, if you just thinking about the listeners, like, have you in the last six months made a bit of a mistake at work, right, And I'm sure everybody has.
Oscar made a tiny little.
Mistake, like like a split second mistake and millions and millions of people see it, and you know, coping criticism and all those people in the stadium like like that's frigging pressure.
Yeah, that is pressure.
Yeah, you're right, yeah, and you're right, you know, and the same. So the people who do the pit stops in Formula one. So during a Formula one race, part of the rules is you have to come in, you have to change all four tires to a different rubber.
That's part of the rules. And the people who do the pit.
Stops are the mechanics, right, So these guys are blue collar workers. They're not high performance athletes. They haven't gone through football academies or junior training programs. They're just mechanics who really like working on cars. And now you have to come and do a pit stop live in a
race in two point five seconds. And if you're the mechanic that makes the mistake and the wheel doesn't get put on properly and the wheel falls off, and you've got a hundred million people watching it, and it's your responsibility, that's a mistake to make, you know what I mean.
Yeah, we were lucky enough to be sitting in the groundstone across from the Petley and seeing all that happen. And I've seen one of the things. It was asked in maright and it screwed up and I was it had the wrong tie.
It's just like, Fuck's right.
Let me tell you that's a that's a high pressure situation for those sports as well.
There's not a big enough hole they can find to hide enough.
No, no, exactly.
You know, that's part of the parcel and that's why you're with the team to support you that. And it's never one person's fault, you know, there's always a process that breaks down prior to that occurring normally, but still it's tough not to blind yourself.
And presumably you over your time witness those gaye training. I mean they must drill that so often for them to be so and anybody who's not watched it, I just google the pet stop like it's freaking amazing how precise and quick these guys are.
It is it is, And yeah, they do practice it a lot, and they've started, you know, since I started working in Formula one nine years ago, they've started to really take that more.
Professionally as well because they understand that it can impact the race.
But yeah, they are practicing it when they're back at the factory in the UK or wherever their factory is, and then practicing it, you know, up to one hundred times over the race weekend and planning for all scenarios as you said to make sure that they're not met with any unexpected curveballs.
So is there anything that you've learned over your journey that you think you will keep with you forever. I'm
¶ Lessons from Elite Athletes and Personal Growth
sure there's a few things, whether it's physical, mental lessons learnt, you know, what would they be?
Yeah, I guess the one thing I've really learned from you know, one thing that I've taken away from working with athletes across all spectrums, but you know, particularly very successful, very driven athletes, is they are pretty ruthlessly focused on the goal that they want to achieve, and they also have a very clear understanding of what's required to achieve
it and what's not required to achieve it. So these are the things that are important and everything else is noise, right, And I've really found out with working with these top performers.
So that's one thing.
And then I guess another thing that I another thing that really sort.
Of I took away. It's quite a powerful lesson for everyday life. Actually was.
I was working with Oscar and Monaco at the race. Oscar came second that weekend, which is unbelievable result for an Australian driver. You know, both Melbourne boys being over in Monaco, and for anyone that's been to Monaco, it's a an out of this world experience, just a completely different level of wealth and money and super yachts and models and all this sort of stuff.
So anyway, we woke up the next.
Day and Matt Damon, the actor who's Jason Born, had asked to meet Oscar.
So we went and met with Matt Damon.
And Oscar's like nineteen or twenty, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, And Oscar goes on, there's probably one person I can't say no to, and that's Matt Damon. So anyway, we went and met him. Awesome, really really nice guy,
and we were talking to him. He was talking to Oscar and giving him a bit of advice, a bit of advice, and one of the things that he had said was he looking back on his career, especially when he was a young actor and winning a lot of awards and doing a lot of cool stuff, one of the things that he didn't spend enough time doing was just pausing in the moment and giving himself a pat on the back and acknowledging that what.
Is achievement is really really good. And so we took that going forwards.
And that's something that I always try to do now just in my day to day life, where if I achieved something that I want to do is just take a moment and actually, hey, you've done a bloody good job there, like congratulations and now you know, move on with it and go on to the next thing.
I think that is really excellent advice.
I can't remember who the professor was, who's done the research that choose that, and it's about savering. Savering success is that you should be saving it and cheer. I can't remember the details of the study, but ten to twelve seconds to reflect and siever and say, hey, yeah, I've actually done a really good job.
Because I think a lot.
Of people, particularly if they're gold driven, tend to be right, got that done? Right?
What's next? What's next? What's next?
But we do need to saver it to have it like process in our brain that will then help build our self efficacy and all of that stuff.
Yeah, And it's interesting you say ten to twelve seconds, because I didn't know that number, But honestly, that's that's all it feels like, is what you do need. But you know you need more than a second. But ten to twelve second seems about right. And like the other thing I would say is, you know, life just seems to be getting busier more and more by the day. You know, we're getting pulled in every direction in social media, family, cost of living.
All of this sort of stuff.
And so to actually just take pause, as you said, ten seconds and just give yourself quick pal on the back and say, hey, I've done a bloody good job here is super rewarding. And yeah, so that's one thing I really took away from that, and I was like, oh, that's a good piece of advice going forward.
Yeah, and and look again, Marcus Aurelius pops up for me. I mean, he said he would get up in the morning and visualize his day and and do a quick journal about what values and virtues he wanted to express that day, how he wanted to be here, and then in the evening he would take his journal out again and he would reflect on his day and go here, here's what I said. I wanted to do what went
well and what needs some work. And I think that that bookending is really really powerful because because it's we do need to have some time to reflect, to reflect on what has happened.
What lessons am I going to learn from today? What
¶ The Launch of Pocket Mentor: AI in Coaching
went well? What needs work?
I mean, athletes and elite performers do it all the time. We should be doing it.
Right precisely, and you know, otherwise you blink and you're in the middle of June and you are.
And we all know this feeling right, We all say cheesers.
I can't believe it's already winter because half the year's already gone by, and you haven't actually, you know, slowed down to acknowledge it. It has been six months, but I've actually achieved quite a lot in that time. So I think book ending your day or doing something like that is great.
So tell me what what what are you doing night? What was the and and leaving Formula one? Was that pretty daunting of a step? Did you have something layed up before you left? And so talk us through that?
Yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't daunting because I knew that the time was right, I'd done my dash, so it wasn't daunting. But at the same at the same time, I didn't have anything lined up. But I was quite happy with that because I ended up just taking nine months off, which was which was unbelievable. But admittedly, you know it wasn't It wasn't that easy to slop back into the sporting scene in Australia because you've been away for nine years, so you're out of sight, out of mind, no one.
Knows who you are.
Sport in general is pretty insular. You tend to look within your own industry or certainly within your own country, so teams over here don't necessarily understand what formula one is or what the role is that I was doing working with sort of top performing athletes. So anyway, no, it wasn't dawnt.
Yeah, go on, I was going to say, and a lot of sport doesn't have a lot of money.
Also true also some sports, some sports heaps.
A lot of sport does not have a lot.
Of and that's very true as well. Yeah, so but you know, not that I'm asking for the world in terms of salary, but no, but I have ended up. So two AFL football coaches last year came up with the idea of creating a mentorship app because they obviously
work love working with athletes. They've got incredible ip from being professional athlete to now being professional coaches, and so they started basically in putting all of their high performance coaching frameworks, all of their notes from their playing days to create an AI mentor which can be rolled out to many many people.
So that's called pocket mentor. So I've started working.
With them, which has been great, and you know, mentorship and coaching is something that I'm passionate about, you know, helping young athletes or helping young people develop, you know, is something that I've really enjoyed.
So it's been a great challenge.
And whilst we're using you know, sort of elite coaches and elite business practitioners and stuff to help shape the mentor, this is for everyday use. So this is for everyday people at home who have got pain points. Who are you know, they might be looking for self growth, emotional clarity, or general development to talk to an AI agent that's very structured and grounded with you know, evidence based guidance to help.
So the AI has been fed that diet of their performancenots and things like that. So it's basically become an expert performance.
Precisely, precisely.
Yeah, so much more structured and less generic than what, for example, a chat chip.
Yeah you got you've got to get a different answer if you ask precisely.
So chat ept is very affirmative. It just wants to say yes, and.
Which is a great a great egovers every now and then. But sometimes you need to be held accountable, you know, or you need a mental like a true mental will hold you accountable, follow up on on how you're doing, you know, and checking emotionally and so that's what a real mental entity, not just a yes man who tells you how good you are all the time, even though it's not.
I've actually asked GPT, can you please stop giving me platitudes when I ask you a question?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, any iculous.
So on a personal note, I've loved it, and the app isn't launching it the Apple we launched in a couple of months.
But okay, yeah, we're doing some some.
Pretty cool things and some pretty exciting things, and through sports networks and Formula one wheld, we have some access to some pretty high performers. So we're going to contribute to the mentorship experience, which is going to be great and we hope it can help a lot of people.
Yeah, that's pretty cool. I like that idea.
Actually, that's that's that's using AI in a very niche way, but one that cho's because a lot of a lot of young athletes, you know, they don't have access to cultures. I mean my wife Kurli, who's a practicer in Japanese culture. She's been working with a young athlete who's just had had no coaching whatsoever, and just giving her some basic turns has just made a massive, massive difference.
Precisely. And you know, this stuff isn't very accessible. You know, it's tough to get a good mentor or a good coach or you know, they're only available from nine to five. The benefit of chatting to a pretty grounded AI agent like this is one that's accessible anytime anywhere. You can chat to it at eight pm on your couch, you know.
And two, it's cheap and incredibly scalable, so now anyone can actually access it as opposed to having to pay four hundred dollars for a coaching session or for a psychology session off or whatever it is.
Yeah, that's pretty cool, it's pretty clever. I like that.
That's I look forward to that actually coming right when, So when You're Regular is going to be released.
We think probably mid year or around June.
Right, Okay, so depending on the techies.
Always always, that's been I mean I haven't come from a tech world, so it's been on a personal and been very interesting to learn about this stuff and going back to you know, at the start of our conversation, whereas like I'm always trying to add things to my skill sets, so this has been a nice thing to add to my skill set. But yeah, tech takes a lot longer to master than what I had ever envisioned.
You know, as everyone that can use the Internet, we all think things are easy, but there's it's a lot more science and a lot more smarter people behind it working on it than I am.
So yeah, and so what does the what's the exciting future, kim look like? Anything on the horizon that's whetting your appetite?
Yes, I think this is probably the biggest passion project at the moment in terms of getting this to market and seeing this go live.
I think that's going to be pretty rewarding.
And then yeah, on a personal note, Look, I still am involved, you know, on the periphery of Formula one, so I'll probably stay involved in that a little bit. And then yeah, spending time down the beach, seeing my mates and then getting a bit of traveling as well is probably the most exciting things upcoming for me.
Yeah, cool excellent, friends and family first and then travel rather than the other way around.
It depends is in my good books and bad books. You know, sometimes it's nice to get over to a nice beach somewhere and just relax.
Indeed, Ken excellent, thank you, Thank you very much for your time and good luck with the app. I think it's something that the world really neat. So yeah, I look forward to seeing that being launched. Where can people go to find out more about you? Because I believe you do speaking as well, So if they want to bring in for a speaker for their business or to find out about the app, are you in general, where do we send them to a.
Yeah, really good question.
So the app is just pocketmentor dot com so you can look at that. Otherwise, yeah, I do do public speaking. You're right to corporates, and I think that's where our mutual connection is is through keynote speakers, so you can get all of my details.
From them there.
Otherwise I'm on LinkedIn like everyone is as well, So just Kim Keele at LinkedIn.
Cool excellent all right, I appreciate it. Go on, enjoy the beach in this lovely autumn day.
I will do.
Jeez, thanks mate,