Alex: 0:37

Welcome to another episode of the Working it Out podcast. We're here today with Don Barrell. He's got a long list on his CV, but we'll start with the part which I'm most passionate about. If you know me very well, I always talk about Greenhouse Sports. So have the absolute pleasure of talking to the CEO today. Welcome to the podcast, Don Barrell.

Don: 0:56

Yeah, thanks very much for having me. I was looking forward to this.

Alex: 0:59

I really appreciated you saying yes. And this one I was really excited for. And when I was going through your list of all your, the accolades, there's been some really great ones on there playing for Saracens, which would probably be top of most of people's lists. But for me, because of my passion for Greenhouse, this is just pip that, but yeah, there's some really cool stuff in there from working with the RFU to to play for Saracens. So yeah, really cool accolades there.

Don: 1:24

Yeah, there's been, I think varied was was the journey. Definitely themes of sport, but it's probably contrary to where I am today. Quite enjoyed it, to be honest. It's been a ride.

Alex: 1:33

So what we'll do is we'll jump straight into our first question, which we do have all of our guests. So we have a Working it Out locker. So this locker has got loads of items from people's relationships with physical activity. It's pull up bars to compression socks, to treadmills, to varsity photos, the lot. So is there one item that comes to mind in terms of your relationship, physical activity that you'd like to put into our locker?

Don: 1:58

Yeah, so all of your guests have told you how much this has made them think, and it's a good question because it has. There's easy ones. You've talked about rugby, definitely had a career in it. I don't think it's something from that it's a bike. So I'm going to put a bike into it. So if you know me well, you'd say, which bike? So I'm just going to stick with my, my general bike. So look, I have always enjoyed activity, moving it's probably the thing I now spend most of my time on. But that's not the reason it goes in. It goes in because for me, like cycling, getting on your bike is is one of those super universal things. Like I did it as a kid. And two miles an hour feels like 200 miles an hour. You can go further away from your house. You can build jumps, hang out with your mates. I've got a bit older, stop playing rugby. And it's the thing I now do for exercise. Like I'm a really bad racer on it. So I've got to do a bit of racing. It, but importantly, and I've actually listened to other guests like some of my best pictures I currently have of me, my son and my dad still, and if you look at that age range, there's a good kind of 60 something years between everybody on that. There's not many activities that you can do with that kind of intergenerational shift and everyone gets something out of it. So I've heard other people talk about running and yeah, I definitely can't see myself going for a run right now because he needs his new hip at this point, but he can still cycle. So in every sense is social kind of family. It's probably for me, like the best thing you can pop in. I commute on it. I socialize on it. get to hang out with my, kid, my dad, my friends with it. And, I'm a big fan of all forms bikes. So the bike goes in and comes in with me.

Alex: 3:43

So yeah, there were a few things I picked up there which bad racer. Does this mean that the level of competition that was in rugby has transferred into cycling...

Don: 3:53

The enthusiasm. The competitive desire is something that I've worked on as I've transitioned out from being a, athlete. It's an interesting one. Like you, you definitely reflect it as you grow up. Like I grew up as a I was an archetypal kid with a load of energy. I was probably sent towards sport actively. The, yeah, so I do some racing now. So what happened, like I finished playing, I was looking for some activities. I did a few random bits of doing some wakeboarding. Always enjoyed riding my bike, try crit racing. There's nothing more humbling than doing a fourth cap crit and being overtaken by a 13 year old, probably on his dad's old bike. And they ride off in the distance and you just can't, Get anywhere near and then, do you know what I, and I've started in ultra racing, Alex, so I did a 1500 mile race a couple of years ago, I've just got a place on London, Edinburgh, London this year, I was, came 13th for my ultra, which 105 kilos at the time, I'm like, I can visualize myself as Tom Pitcock, but he's got 40 kilos on me, so I'm always a disadvantage, I was just good at not stopping

Alex: 4:56

Got the engine.

Don: 4:58

I love it.

Alex: 4:59

That's what I remember talking to Lauren Steadman, who was the first podcast I did, para triathlete. And she just says, she just has the engine for it. Like she always talks, she talks about her body as if it wasn't her own. And it's just the engine. And she, because she was into swimming and went, then went into to triathlon. She was like, The bike is just because I've got the engine for it. That's the only reason why I'm good, because I just don't stop. So it sounds like you've got the engine for it as well.

Don: 5:25

Do you know, like it's really interesting, and I know we're going on with stuff, but it's, I had to change because I was like, I was a rugby player, so you're a power athlete you get good at repeating stuff that doesn't last longer than a minute, that's that's the sort of general premise of the sport. And then I had to get good at cycling for 21 hours a day and in that first race, I spent a lot of time just crossing over with this guy called John. And John, 25 years older than me, like nearly 16, the front end of this race just remarkable and he was you don't have to be quick. Just, you just need to not to be slow and he'd tell me off when he'd seen me take too long to get food out of a petrol station, and he'd just whiz past on his bike and go, you're too slow. I learned a lot on that, and I thought it was quite a good lesson for life. You don't always need to be the quickest you just need to keep going, and I think that's a skill I've probably always had. I've been really good at moving forward.

Alex: 6:18

And you say this has gone off. It hasn't. So the podcast is guided by the conversation. So we have these structures because the idea is that the question set stays the same. You think, how is that going to work for a long period of time? But the answers are so different. So the five minute conversation, 10 minute conversation off each question just has not been the same yet. And that's because we just let it go wild. But we've, we have actually led really nicely into some of the next parts. So we've used some words, some emotions at some points, which the second question is, when it comes to physical activity, what one emotion describes your relationship with it? And I'm really interested to hear what you, what that one word, because you said you'd prepped what word you have thought about, because I've heard like enthusiasm come through and some bits like that. But throughout your life, what is their emotion that comes out the strongest?

Don: 7:07

Yeah, development. And there's loads of other and I'm lucky to have had them and still get them right through, through sport and activity. But if I say what is it, what has it been to me, development, like it, it was It was something that if I look back on now, with the hindsight of a few years it's always something that's moved me forward or made me learn not always, in the time and at the moment, quite appreciated that was something I would learn and reflect on and think, Oh, I'm glad I had that experience. There are definitely times having had a professional sports career when you think, crikey, this is a tough one and you don't see it in it, but you do give in the hindsight of years and you get better at realizing it. Like as a kid, gave me an opportunity to achieve stuff, to develop, and naturally people want to progress, so people want to move towards that kind of mastery. They want to move towards that bit. And like on, on small levels, you see it in, I see it in my own children. They're seven and nine. They're want to progress. So it gave me a chance to develop as I've got older, I developed not just a sport, I developed the kind of psycho social skills around it. I love developing people through sport. That's the thing I love, right? That's the career I've had once I stopped playing. I was a coach and then started to lead systems and run systems and national bits, but they were really about developing people. Developing people processes, systems to ultimately improve like life outcomes for people. And as I did more of it, maybe didn't come about, developing you Alex in that session with me standing in front of you in my tracksuit and stuff, it became about how can I develop a system and the people within the system to develop other people. And as part of that, I grew and developed myself, right? Because your skills have to grow to go and do those things. And the current job. That's it. I guess I've sharpened the sword to go, okay, now I'm working with people who absolutely need. the benefits of sport and to be developed through sport and all the, skills and other bits I've learned. And, personally it's the first CEO job I've had. I'm developing again. And it's a sports based charity and yeah, it's great. So I think for me, like that's the word that's driven everything in sport.

Alex: 9:19

What do you think the differences between Developing within participating in sport and working in, where do you, what do you feel the differences in for yourself?

Don: 9:31

Not massive because that sort of, I think the process of acquisition and like either, of skill and knowledge is, it depends how far we want to zoom out. But in effect, like the thing is, there is something you probably can't do and you are taking steps towards doing it. And once you're doing it, you want to be able to do it in a more impactful, effective way and you want to engage other people. So that might be catching, passing in my first job, tackling. In this job, it might be some of the softer skills around coaching. It might be talking about a spreadsheet. You got to look at the numbers, right? You're leading the organization. The acquisition process around knowledge and skills and taking people on the journey, I think is super transferable and similar.

Alex: 10:12

Yeah.

Don: 10:12

never forget that.

Alex: 10:14

Is that something which so this transition into development of sport and thinking about others, is this something that you were conscious of in your early career? Were you always thinking this is going to be the next thing for me? Or was it towards? The transition because I've seen you in amazing roles. Now he said the performance advisor talking specifically about this. You do that your coach mentor at the Premier Lee head of performance pathways programmemes at RFU. Was it always the intention that you enjoyed doing that? Or was that something that you learned as you're progressing through your professional career?

Don: 10:47

No, look, I've always enjoyed like working with people, Like that. I am a, I'm a person who energizes around other people and always been something that's true. Like I was in years 7, 8 and 9 and spoke to school and can I do some mentoring with other kids who are in trouble in the school? Help me do it. After look, my rugby was going okay. As a young person, I was in the academy system. When I was 16 I went and I went to Peru for a month, did some traveling because I thought, okay if I don't, my parents were super supportive. If you don't do it now and I end up signing this contract in two years, then well, I definitely won't be able to do it. So I I went and traveled and I met people developed. I. I studied anthropology anthropologist the time when I signed my contract at the club, they wanted me to go and do, they said you need to go and do sports science. Look, and I was the first generation to get to go to uni within my family, right? That felt great. And I wanted to go and study what I wanted to study. And if I was going to sign a sports contract, I didn't want to do more sport. Like I wanted to do something I found genuinely interesting. So people. development, culture, society, that they are great tools so I think we have to be, yeah, like you're always going to be conscious that all these things are connected, like that there's loads in it. When I stopped playing for Saracens, thought I was going to teach. I started that. So I was at Mill Hill School. Saracens was really good as a club, helped me open that relationship. So I was coaching the rugby and just dipping my foot in. Okay what would it look like? I've started to teach him was stood in a few history classes, started to teach a few lessons again, the skills of how do I work with young people and get them to listen, be engaged, like that's a, that was a great thing. Yeah I would have thought it would been something in that space had that the first career not happened.

Alex: 12:33

That's amazing. History as well. I thought that was a curveball for me. I don't want to put that. I would have put it when you start talking about teaching. You meant it. physical education route, but you actually mean what your degree was related to. So that's pretty awesome as well.

Don: 12:46

Yeah, look, I love sport. I'm an absolute believer and say this to people I work with now, like you need two sides to your coin. So if your main thing is as a professional athlete, clearly that was my main thing. I had a load of time outside of playing because you can only train for so long to your body explodes. So Yeah, it's true in all sports and therefore you do have some more time. So I did coach every week, two, three times a week as a professional athlete. Schools, community clubs, adult teams. I read, I listened, I learned I was, working in England and working with England. So I I got facilitated one day by a guy called Patrick who works and runs a company called Leading Edge. was so good as a sort of developer of people. And I learned, I came out this session thinking that's the first time like I've really been challenged. And not in a, just ask me questions got me to reflect. And I was thinking, okay this is coaching. This is coaching without a, ball, bike, sport, or whatever it was. This was coaching me to be better at the job. And that time it was running a talent system. So afterwards I hounded him and said can I now, can I come and watch you? I come and watch you in this room? Can I follow you around? Can I see you operate? Can I watch you go in and out of other businesses? me let me do all of that. And then I struck up a relationship to go and start, coaching in other organizations in businesses, because I felt that was a stretch. That was a challenge. That was an uncomfortable space for me to be in. And that's something then I was doing and have done for years, because that's how you grow, like you find things that make you slightly uncomfortable that you think accelerate your, your main side of the coin. And you have to be targeted and proactive and going to find them.

Alex: 14:23

I'm really interested in that part because you've mentioned a few people you mentioned leading edge. You've mentioned you mentioned coaches in the past

Don: 14:29

Yeah,

Alex: 14:30

and the next questions around our into inspirational dinner party. I feel like we're leading into a few people being mentioned and what normally happens is people go. Nope, they're not the ones that I've written down at all, but they're just people who have influenced my career. So if you were going to have an inspirational dinner party, we've called it, you have three seats, you're there. These are people who've inspired you, but related to physical activity and sport. Doesn't have to be your progression, doesn't have to be your career. It's just people you've watched on TV or anything at all. So if you're going to invite three people, who would you invite?

Don: 15:05

I've got rid of, I've gone around the house on this. There's it's a small table at me plus three,

Alex: 15:10

There's a small table.

Don: 15:12

You've kept it small and intimate so the conversation will be good. It's fascinating because you flip between people you've you know, you've, you have knowledge of and who have really influenced you and have moved you and they're definitely, those people first rugby coach at a local club, this guy called Les Simpson. Williams was a teacher. He took me through my secondary school and it was a great kind of guide to me, taught me some of the best bits of sport when I was playing in England youth teams used to hand write letters before every international wishing you luck and setting out some goals and things and value all those things. So there's some, there's been some great people like who would I have? I'll give you, I actually met someone the other night for the first time, a good example. So I guess. the first name we'll give you is in service of me continuing to learn and grow. I was at an event the other night the true athlete projects kind of vision launch evening that was really interesting. That was, it was great. I listened to what they're doing. And Yeah. Yeah. Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson came in. I was like super excited, right? Because first, I'm just a sports fan and you've got this class Olympian. And was like, okay, I might as well go and say hello. I'm a, I'm first and foremost fan. And then secondly, because of, I think, what she stands for in terms of driving access to activity, like barriers to activity right? Yeah. And. I just, I massively admire how direct she's been, like, how challenging she's been. Like in some sense I admire it and wish she didn't have to be at the same time and I've always admired her. Got to have a conversation and follow up with Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. So she would be first on my list because I'd like a bit more knowledge. I'd like to pick her brains in one sense. So that'd be one. Second, like I, I can't, I'm not going to say you Alex, because we're talking now and we've already built that relationship, but like I'm learning hugely at the moment, right? I was, I've always thought I was good at understanding what like, what are the barriers in the way of people taking part in activity. So even when I was like in doing the job that was around getting people to the top end of the pointy end of the pathway. So we'll take, we'll take the unnamed person in my current job. So I'll lift one of my young Greenhouse people to that table who I've yet to meet. And we'll hear from them, because they're going to be young and they're going to be living The challenges that are there and they're going to bring perspective that is going to make people like me need to listen I'm a long way from it, despite how hard I try and will be every day. So we'll have an unnamed participant. The last one you've only given me one more seat. But this is the one, this is the group that hasn't changed. I was Going to say my family. So my parents, my brother and sister, it's a big seat. You can give them a bench. And if it's just two, I'll bring my mum and dad. Like I'm really fortunate that they have been huge drivers of activity. We all know, you'll see the research on if you've got trusted adults who active around you they'll do stuff. And like they're both ends of the scale, right? So my dad was a, did all activities and all things. He got me in cycling, still does it still loves it. My mum was active, walked, got us outside as kids, punted us out the front door when we're a bit too much over the fields. Let's go and whack some trees and do stones, both a love of being outside of moving of doing things for me. I think if you've got that opportunity to have that time with those people in your life, then yeah I'd pick them above someone more famous. Cause I appreciate that. That's fortunate. And I think they bring a good view anyway.

Alex: 18:35

That's a really good three people. And this is why I've brought back this question, this series, because didn't do it in the last one, but it was in the first. And I just, I love the diversity of what people say. And I think you mentioned his name was John, the one who did the handwritten letters. Did it was his name?

Don: 18:49

John Williams. Yeah.

Alex: 18:50

John Williams. One thing that I valued, which you've obviously picked up is when I did the marathon for Greenhouse, you sent a handwritten postcard,

Don: 18:59

My writing's not very good. But

Alex: 19:01

writing horrendous, but the, I really valued that. And that was obviously whether it was picked up from John or not. I think that was something which I really valued before. And it was a stage when still training and it was tough and you're saying, thank you for what you're doing. That's when I was like, no, I'm doing the right thing.

Don: 19:19

It's do you know what, that, that thing's important and that another good example. And just to mention it so yeah, definitely learned that from John and Nigel Ray. The sort of man who's owned and driven Saracens into what it is as a club. He was a great sort of letter writer and marker, like six months after I left the club, like I actually left, I wasn't employed. I'd gone to work for England. We had our second kid was born and I got a handwritten letter, some flowers like within about 24 hours of Rose being born saying congratulations, like another kind of member of the Saracens family. and other stuff and I think was no reason to send that other than you care for people and if you lead with care and make like genuinely lead with it and become like ruthless in working out what that looks like feels like kind of carries like in actions like you learn stuff from people I think they're small kind of parts of what that is so I'm glad you enjoyed it as well.

Alex: 20:15

Yeah, no, it was lovely. And then the part around to talk about the Tanni Grey-Thompson as well, Baroness, how how was that experience meeting her?

Don: 20:24

Yeah, really good. That's what's nice. I thought she's a super smart person who's achieving in, in and after sport. Someone I'd want to learn from is clearly influencing, challenging. in the right, in, in the right ways, like I pick up articles, I I just think and she's doing some stuff because we still haven't made it easy. Like it was only a few months ago. I was reading an article where, she'd have to crawl herself off of a train because simple things weren't good enough. And I think actually like a great reminder, I love it when someone does it with like such kind of skill and quite a sort of fierce resolve. I just think someone I could learn from massively. So I'm glad we're trying to sort a coffee out, which will be, I'll be looking forward to that'd be high on my list.

Alex: 21:07

Yeah, and that'd be a really interesting conversation because I think that could be a, It's a really interesting thing for Greenhouse in general, in terms of a, in terms of a direction. The model that you've got is fantastic, but there's so much scope to work with different types of schools, different types of communities. I think, yeah, that could open so many quite exciting doors.

Don: 21:29

Yeah. And, let's follow it. There's definitely learnings at Greenhouse from, relatively marginalized groups across quite actually a kind of range of groups as well. And we've learned and we've got stuff to say, and we've got things to influence because of that. And that's something that, we can really learn from.

Alex: 21:47

And then So we've got Tanni Grey-Thompson, we've got the Greenhouse participants, and we've got your family, mum and dad. I think they're three amazing seats, and yeah, we'll say mum and dad, put them on one seat together, but we'll in theory get a bench and everyone can join.

Don: 22:02

Brother and sister there as well. There

Alex: 22:03

Yeah. So what we do now is we transition into the second half, which hopefully the listeners have got to understand you as Don Barrell, but obviously what we're trying to do is tackle inactivity here. We introduced the guests so that you can understand the real person behind the role of CEO. But this next part. We want to map out the causes of inactivity and understand what you're passionate about in that field. But before we do that, for those who, maybe this is the first time they're hearing you speak in relation to sports development, policy, governance, whatever you want to call this, could you give a bit of a download of who you are in your role, what the organization is and what they do.

Don: 22:44

Yeah. Obviously Don Barrell, the chief executive at Greenhouse Sports. Greenhouse is an incredible organisation. So if people haven't listened before Alex, then I think you need to finish this introduction. So I'm going to get you to do it. But the, no, what we do is we work with those young people who really most need engagement who are at risk of dropping out and through, brilliant mentoring and engagement through sport. We're driving up school attendance, we're driving up employability, we're driving up social mobility. We use sport as an incredible tool for change with young people who need it most in the highest areas of deprivation. And we've been doing it for a while now.

Alex: 23:24

Yeah, and I, like I said, I plug it all the time, but it's hard to put into words succinctly my relationship with Greenhouse Sports. I'm only here interviewing CEOs and working employed by sporting them because of Greenhouse Sports. That sounds very dramatic. But it's 100 percent true. And that's why I work with them as an organization. So then, because they, amazing coach influenced me at the exact right time when they knew it and I needed it. So that's why I always advocate for the work that Greenhouse does. So then we can see how your work in terms of like you said, or throughout your whole career so far, you've been thinking about talent acquisition, people development and that's what Greenhouse does. It's not just about delivering activities about developing the individuals who are participating. So with that in mind, if we were going to ask, if I was going to ask you, if you're going to start tackling inactivity, If you had a whiteboard and a pen, if you're going to start tackling activity, where does your mind go to and where would you start?

Don: 24:30

Yeah. Great question. Look, I think firstly you just look at like how easy is it? Someone for someone to to just get at activity. Like at its most, most basic, like where do you live? what's outside your front door? So for a lot of like young Greenhouse people if you don't have this the space, time, if it's not safe if your environment doesn't even allow you get out your front door and walk safely down the road, then maybe, we're at quite a low bar, and sadly we are, and if you want to then tackle it at some point, like someone is going to need a person, a trusted person in their life, who's going to help remove those friction points. So typically maybe someone a bit older who can navigate some of those challenges. So if you're lucky, it's a parent. Greenhouse's view is if everyone doesn't have that, then we can put mentors in to schools, into the education system, right? There's a legal requirement to get a kid to school. So whilst there's some brilliant charities working, people working outside of schools, the kind of legal, and I guess, moral duty to get a kid into education means that we can put that person in there. And when you're there, we can, we can remove at least all the friction points around doing activity. So there's that stuff, there's Groundhog Day problems within developing and working with young people to tackle in like inactivity. Puberty, and going into these kind of like difficult adolescent years will happen every year, right? So thing is anywhere you've got a Groundhog Day problem, you can prepare better for it. I think it's at a time when certainly if we look at the individuals, young individuals, there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. And they're trying to navigate through friendships. Your brain is changing. Your body is changing. You're not quite sure. Why, where, what, and if you've got then a space to go to explore stuff, to work through frustrations to engage with some activity that lifts some of that pressure and when you start letting the pressure valve off, then you open up the ability to work with people a bit more actively in a bit more targeted approach. I'd, I would say that's your next step on tackling it and moving, to it. And I guess lastly, I like. Look, it's important you use the word inactivity. So I appreciate you. I'm here, we are Greenhouse Sports don't be under any illusions, like some of the. Stuff we do with young people. The most we'll do is go for a walk. And so we've got some brilliant coaches and that's their engagement is a walk because that's the most inclusive, safest, accessible thing that young person wants to do. Why activity? Cause you're not just tackling inactivity. So this is appreciate this as the sort of podcast aim, like as you're building out there, there are all these other benefits like that come off of getting into inactivity. There was a like ridiculous headline I read this morning in the paper without name calling, but there was a, there was an MP who'd basically said people need to work harder, need a bit more drive. I don't know if you saw that in the news at all

Alex: 27:45

No, I didn't no.

Don: 27:47

So I just said like the way we'll solve it is everyone just needs to work a bit harder. There's some stuff we've got to be better at what we can't so sure yeah, great. Let's take that on face value and assume the how do we do it? Because, my job has been for my whole life then really in working in. Okay. Let's take a statement and assume if everyone did work a bit harder, that would be a good thing. I don't think we'd disagree with that on a very surface level, but then we've got to be a bit, you've got to be super, super careful. Where do we teach young people that actually, if you put something in, then there's some good stuff that comes back because that statement is so far from reality and lived experience of some people who don't get a chance to see success and don't get a chance to experience achievement. So if you put activity around them and you allow them to experience that, if I put something in here, I will get an outcome over here. And that can be as quick as minutes, right? You and I will have both at some point and done a small intervention and you see someone light up and go, Oh, wow. Okay. That's changed. And then so if we don't give young people chances to experience wins and particularly in that with the Greenhouse lens, like they can be hard to come by. So to say that, You just need to work a bit harder when quite often you are putting your head above water. It's difficult. So what we do, you tackle inactivity by, sometimes creating those wins for people. You let them say, okay I've put something here and it's given me outcome here. And then you transfer that outside. You say, okay we can now do that within how well you prepare for your next interview and how well you've written your CV and how much you've practiced speaking to someone. But what we can't do is keep letting people get away with statements that are generic broad and don't provide action that they are not good enough to help people move forward.

Alex: 29:41

Loads of notes just written in and I'm trying to figure out which part to jump into first.

Don: 29:45

I was, yeah,

Alex: 29:46

No, it's fantastic. I think the What so the part of this, the causal mapping exercises is what we do is people's people start broad and then we narrow them down. So there's a few, there's a few points I'm trying to figure out how do I prioritize what we're going to talk about here. So If we were saying Don, you have a budget, you're working on this yourself. Where would you focus your time and energy of all of these things that you've said that you'd love to see? Where would you go? Cause obviously we've got Greenhouse's role, but then we also want to dig into what would Don focus on?

Don: 30:17

Look, it was mentioned actually on one of your last podcasts. The education system has had to take on the chin, loads of other stuff over the years. And there's some brilliant humans teaching, who are doing good things and working hard. And the more and more that gets lumped on, more challenging their role becomes. What would I do is I like, I honestly believe when you work within the sector, if we're talking about genuine inequality and inactivity. Not everyone has the time, freedom, travel, facilities, parents, friends to take them to a sports club on a weekend like that is a really nice problem to have. Not a reality for hundreds of thousands of kids who, in the areas we're in all the time. So what would I do? I would put that mentor into the school system who can be called by their first name or coach or something, right? You always think the thing is, to a young person, your coach to when you're talking to an adult, they're a mentor. And I think that importance is very different, but it's got to feel safe. They've got to keep showing up. That person has to be able to show up. And they have to be able to catch you. At the moment you're in need. So the challenge of some things, and so what would I do? I'd make sure that person can turn up and stay there. I think the difference in that model to, from the one that says, okay we run this programme for X number of months for a few hours a week what if I feel all right during those few hours a week, or what, if that's not the year that I'm really struggling with my identity or who I am, well maybe that's not the year that I've got problems or issues at home, like the sort of consistent, permanent. And what that person then has, they have capacity, right? They have capacity to flex the need of the child. And that's super important because otherwise it's a sort of bolt on and a rush job. And I guess if, you think to that mentor that you had I guess I'd ask you what was it like, or what was the thing you got from it that you felt was meant, you're sitting here now. doing these interviews was it the sport? I'd probably say no. Yeah, tell me what was it you got from them? Describe it.

Alex: 32:21

I thought this was going to come up today. So it's, I didn't plan to say this either. But you know me, I like to chat. So I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to properly answer the question. Yeah, a guy called Tony, he's, it was incredible. And he didn't even know for years that he did this because he, in my opinion, he did this every day to everyone. It was just who he was. So he was a, Just one of the, one of the coaches we, I played football all day and I was getting too old to be a Greenhouse participant. And I was like, what do I do next? And so I would, I volunteered. He was like, he was the one who was encouraging me to volunteer with Greenhouse because then I could come along with my brother who was younger, still participate, be there for the day. Cause it was over at that time. It was over the summer. It was a summer holiday thing. You paid a pound a day. So it was, so we'd be there and And on the first day talking to all of the all of the volunteer kids, that was about six of us, and it was like, these kids aren't here because of the sport, they'll be disengaged from their life, disengaged from family, disengaged from school. And we're here today to use football, dodgeball, basketball, to re engage them. That's why you're here, for them to have the best time possible so that they can re engage in the things that are important to them. And I was, I said, this is, this 15 year old Alex in a less articulate way was like, this is blowing my mind how I want to do this. Like, why wasn't everyone doing this? England needs to be better at doing this. He goes if you want to do this better and you want everyone to do this in England, you need to become the CEO of Sports England. And I was like how do I do that? And honestly, it's as cheesy as that is. That's what set my career path on it. And then he started to, Just suggest and talk to me about ways of how I can actually knuckle down in my GCSEs, get a decent grade because I wasn't doing well at all. And then focus, okay, what's the next step for me? And then we'll just work it out from there. And it was a BTEC sport and I managed to get that and go from there. So it wasn't really, it wasn't like a long term conversation, it was literally over the course of a summer holiday. So six weeks. Yeah that, that influence was huge.

Don: 34:28

I always think the interesting bit is but they had to be there, right? For, and you had to be ready for that influence to happen. And I think that's the interesting part, right? On, if we You know, if we dip intervention in and out of places, sometimes it's almost like that, here's what you could have won. So you you're left with a shirt of a charity and then actually might be the year later when you were absolutely ready to be pushed and changed and transformed and that person isn't there And I think that's again, not to go off, but we've, we've, we're talking a lot on schools, education, policy. Phillipson said the other side, just before Christmas that actually the thing we, belong in, belonging is going to be absolutely central to wellbeing and that's going to be so important within education. So yeah, fine. Lovely to say how? How? And I think that, that's the part, like I, if I'm allowed one other, like I would push people to not to be allowed to make those general statements without the plan behind it. Because, again, I would say, Yeah, that's all fine. There's some really good evidence on how we drive belonging and being and like an intervention you can put in place, but you, just done a big, we do, there's an educational curriculum review going on at the moment. Where's the place of sport and inactivity in it? It's nowhere near good enough when we all know that really the win for everyone, the win for society is like a lifelong, active, happy participant. Someone who can swim and walk is the win. Someone who's experienced in relationship with activity was good. There's a, it's a brilliant quote by Frederick Douglass who's talked about it's easier to build strong children than repair broken men. The quote now, like I've always thought about that in my life and look, of course we have to do both because we can't put someone's kind of life up, but we absolutely can't it's inexcusable to allow young people to develop without that positive relationship with activity and exercise. And, To Bridget Philipsen's points, if you want to drive well being and belonging, then it's an apps, it's a key tool. Good example, my little boy at the moment is nine look, he's, I'm sure we could write very similar school reports, right? Because all mine from when I was a kid say, oh, he's full of activity, he's full of energy, he needs to focus a bit. And, he's a lovely kid. Like the school credits them have now got a thing where he is nine. So he's a year five. As a group of kids, you need a bit more activity every day. They need a bit more exercise. This is probably a rabbit hole to not go down cause it could take too long. But the the way we teach kids isn't always geared to getting the best out of young people. He coaches every day, right? Because he's the oldest kid in the kind of like extra activity group. And he coaches a group of year threes and fours an extra 20, 30 minutes a day. He gets this feeling of, he talks to me about what he's doing, he organized the session, sets the kit up, speaks to the other young people and they all get this extra time moving, right? In no way, like that is only adding to his school experience and his ability to stay in and learn in the classroom. Like on a slightly more, so there's a single example on a kind of like evidence based example. Greenhouse have got a PhD running with UCL's neuroscience lab that is looking at in primary children, what's the impact of a Greenhouse intervention against a control group. So sports based intervention versus I think the control group was using like an art, journaling art approach to, there is a measurable and clear difference in classroom in a young person's cognition, right? And therefore classroom attainment off the back of sports based experience. So to go through a curriculum review that again, doesn't really lean into The best thing we can do for a lot of young people is to look at the place of activity. You want to tackle inactivity. So the government have agreed breakfast clubs. That is fantastic, right? We're going to feed more children. That is brilliant. Greenhouse would say we absolutely know if you do the breakfast club you put that coach mentor in place and they can do some sports based intervention and work with those young people who need it and talk around. Okay. There's a big day coming up. You've got these classes you find challenging. You've got this relationship that's difficult. Let's just work through it. Let's talk through it. And we can do that whilst playing basketball. And because I've been fed, I don't have that barrier to achievement and attainment. And then I can do my little piece of mentoring. And then I step into a school day. Which do you think would have a better outcome for that young person, like built up over a period of years? We all know it. So I think there just has to be some bigger, like I'm a systems person, right? Like you, you have to think in terms of systems. So if we're going to do breakfast clubs and feeding people, and we have evidence to tell you that using this sports based intervention, we can increase cognition and classroom attainment. I, it's not gonna really cost you a load more money. And it's gonna have a massive outcome on everybody within that schooling system. And then the mornings conversations on everyone working a bit harder. That's how you do it. There's some steps that are practical and not just a load of hot air.

Alex: 39:24

unbelievable. So the thing that does really fair, unfair of me is every guest says this is no it's bigger than this. It's bigger than this. And I really do narrow people down because the map I'm building, it has all of those bigger things. So when we start off broad, I note them down and I whittle them down so that we can try to get to some, we have that systemic view. Yes, you're saying that the education system is fragmented with sport and I've spoken in detail about that as well with Gary Laybourne on I think that was episode two. He's a Greenhouse graduate, so they're doing well at getting that message out to everyone. But then we do dig into it in different ways and the full time mentor in school is a big part of that. Is a fantastic real some example for those people who have the ability to be able to do that and work with that's why I would never use the word like coach, even though they are Greenhouse coach. They are more than that. They're that mentor who is also a coach. So that's incredible way. I really like this last that last bit around something. This is really new and I'm trying to figure out how we dig into it. How I dig into it in future conversations as well around whether they be MPs or people of influence and not making generalised statements. I don't know how I'm going to populate this on my map, but it's a really interesting topic, which I'm, yeah, need to dig into.

Don: 40:39

How do you do it? You have to challenge people like me to ask the questions. So we have to be good at saying great, tell us the plan. Then like great noise, great words. What's your plan? Show us, or we have to call it, I guess that comes with the territory to an extent, right? Where our job is to amplify voices that are not brilliantly amplified. People are held back by opportunity, not ability. So I have the opportunity. So maybe it's my job to push it.

Alex: 41:06

I think that's an incredible place to finish there. I really enjoyed our conversation today. We've started broad, really started to talk around access and then how we dig that down into education system and supporting people in schools. I think that's a really interesting part. Really enjoyed your three guests and your relationship with physical activity. And yeah, just really happy that Greenhouse has come on the podcast. So yeah, thank you very much for that.

Don: 41:31

No, I appreciate your invite massively. Thank you very much.