Speaker 1: 0:24

Welcome back to Finance Friends, your personal seat at the table with leaders shaping the financial world. In this exclusive season we meet with high profile, incredibly successful athletes who achieve the greatest heights on the sports field and are now dominating the finance world. Today's episode we have Ted Richards. Played over 250 games for 16 seasons for Essendon and Sydney Swans, premiership player, all-australian centre-half back, and he talks through his journey of being a football player studying part-time, working part-time and his mindset of being the best in the competition and how he's able to achieve that. And now he leads a team at Wilson's Advisory, one of the leading financial services firms in Australia. Listen in and hear his story. Today we have Ted Richards. Ted, welcome to the studio. Thanks very much for having me. Thank you for coming in. You're a busy man. You mentioned you're off to a conference in Adelaide during the week. Talk to me about that conference.

Speaker 3: 1:34

Yeah, so I wear two hats in my role at Wilson's Advisory, one of which is managing and leading the private wealth team here in Melbourne. I've got advisors, but the other hat I wear is I've got a book of clients as well that I work with. So over there it's probably a bit of both it is getting out and meeting some advisors over in South Australia, but also the opportunity to speak in front of some high net worth investors about our thoughts on the market and what we're doing to position portfolios around current events.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Yeah, so your role is head of Melbourne at Wilson Advisory, so you look after your own clients. You're a financial advisor and investment advisor, is that right?

Speaker 3: 2:15

Yes, so yeah, I work with high net worth individuals, families, family offices and not-for-profit organisations. I have a team where I've got a colleague we partner up together and she focuses more on the financial planning component, the strategic piece for clients. I'm sure many listeners will be familiar with that, but for those not aware, what entities are we going to invest, what cash flow requirements, what liquidity they may need, and my role is the investment piece. So related to that is finding someone's risk profile, getting the right asset allocation according to that and then, once the asset allocation is determined, investing across managed funds and direct equities, both domestic and global, to build out a portfolio for them that meets their goals and objectives.

Speaker 1: 3:12

So you look at a client and every client would be very different in terms of their needs and objectives and their risk profile and what they're seeking to return, thinking to return, yeah.

Speaker 3: 3:27

So there's a line that people often use for family offices, but it's relevant for high net worths too is you've seen one family office? You've seen one family office? A lot of high net worths have different goals and objectives. So for some of my clients right now it is investing for the future generations and there is no need for the funds right now, whereas there are others that are in a similar situation that actually are after the income, because, whether it's bank of mum and dad and gifting some salaries to the younger generations, or it's the need for liquidity to pay sizable land tax that they may have in investment properties and holiday houses, there's different goals and objectives along the way and I help position the portfolio to ensure that they can be met.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Yeah, and how often would you meet with your clients to give them an update on what's happening on investment markets and update on their portfolio?

Speaker 3: 4:22

Yeah, well, speaking, certainly speaking frequently, particularly if there are times of volatility and depending when this podcast may be listened to, depending what Trump may or may not have said and the policies around that. But, yeah, try to catch up with them, monthly or quarterly to check in with them.

Speaker 1: 4:46

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 4:46

What are the?

Speaker 1: 4:48

most important skills that are required in your job at the moment, and did you learn some of those skills being a professional athlete?

Speaker 3: 4:59

Yeah, to take it back a step. Yeah, a professional athlete. My job was as an AFL footballer. If you really want to take it back a step, a professional athlete, my job was as an AFL footballer. If you really want to simplify it, my job was to chase a ball, chase a ball and try to get it, or protect the ball, go the other way.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Or protect it and try and kick it.

Speaker 3: 5:17

between, two sticks and on the other hand, if you really want to simplify it, it's managing someone's wealth that they've probably taken decades, if not longer, to accumulate. So you know, on one level they're very different, but there are some similarity life skills that I have taken from my football career, such as hard work, resilience. And if I had to give a third, it would be around goal setting and competitiveness. So just to build that out a bit more, as a private wealth advisor, I know that part of my role is attention to detail and with that attention to detail comes hard work.

Speaker 3: 6:11

My role as an advisor requires resilience, whether it's speaking with a client about the fact that the market has pulled back and things out of my control. But the reality is we're diversified, there's that. But potentially I've gone in for a pitch and unfortunately I haven't won that pitch having that resilience, but to know that I've got to go again. And that last one, I think I said, goal setting and competitiveness. The reality is, you know, as an advisor or, sorry, as an individual I like winning, but potentially sometimes I go too far with winning, Like a bit of a tangent here, but like when I get to an airport like my wife just laughs in that, because airports are often full of queues, I have to pick the. My wife just laughs because airports are often full of queues, I have to pick the queue, that's the quickest.

Speaker 1: 7:10

I'm the same.

Speaker 3: 7:10

And I am furious with myself.

Speaker 1: 7:13

I hope you don't break the pack on the way through? No, no no, I don't, but I'm furious with myself. If you pick the wrong one, if I pick the wrong one.

Speaker 3: 7:20

Not because it's cost me an extra minute or two, but because I lost, and yeah. So if you can harness that goal setting and that competitiveness for good, be it. As an advisor and I want to deliver as much alpha as I can for my clients I want to win as many pitches as I can. That's the good side, you know. But there is a negative side to being competitive in that there's a flip side to that coin. Sometimes you just can't turn it off and you know when I was playing and I'm not the only you know sometimes you know you have a bad loss. You can't sleep that night because you're just replaying.

Speaker 2: 8:03

All these times when Nick Riewoldt or someone like that might have kicked a goal on me and I just wish I had that contest back.

Speaker 1: 8:13

So you talked about goal setting. I want to bring it back to your time in football. Did you have an individual plan that your coach would run through with you, or is it more at a team level? Like, obviously you reached the ultimate success of being an AFL Premiership player. Was that set by the coaching staff or is that more you as an individual, that you wanted to play 22 games and you want to play finals?

Speaker 3: 8:42

Yeah, so I was fortunate enough to play for 16 years, and five of those were at Essendon and 11 were at the Swans and pretty much every year there is some form of goal setting. There is some form. But I think where goal setting is different, where people fall short often, is they'll either think it or perhaps they'll write it down and then it'll stop there. So I can remember a goal of mine in my first year of football as a 17-year-old was to be more confident when I play on the field.

Speaker 2: 9:20

What is?

Speaker 3: 9:20

that.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Very qualitative, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:23

How do you do that? How do you measure that? So, over the course of my career, it was actually. If we've got time, I'll tell this story it was 2010. I had a bad year of footy, so were you playing at.

Speaker 1: 9:37

I was at the Swans.

Speaker 3: 9:39

I was at the Swans and we didn't get off to a good start that year and I got dropped, call it round two or round three, and I actually looked ahead to see who the Swans were playing. It was like the bottom three teams the next few weeks and I knew straight away we're going to smack those teams and it's going to be very hard for me to get back in for a while. So I worked my ass off and everything like that and I was out of contract, which made me even more nervous. I got my way back in and at the end of the season I had an okay season and fortunately I was offered a one-year deal which got me an extra contract. But I can remember thinking at the end of that season I've got to do things a bit differently this year.

Speaker 3: 10:26

And around that time I read a book called Good to Great, which I'm sure listeners will be familiar with, and in that book there's a couple of themes that I stole which, when it came to goal setting, I really utilized. One was this I love this parable through the book about the hedgehog and the fox. For those not familiar with this, the fox tries to be good at everything and that's what I was trying to do as a footballer. I was trying to be good at everything, whereas the reality is that's very hard, if not impossible. There's only, you know, the 0.1%, 1% of people that can do that. The more sensible strategy is to try and be the hedgehog. That's good at one thing and that is, you know, for a hedgehog, it's rolling up into a ball full of spikes and you know what a fantastic defensive mechanism. So you're probably wondering where am I going with this. Anyway, I decided I was going to, instead of trying to be someone that could play every position, I'm going to try and be the best centre-half back in the competition. No, sorry, I'm not going to try. I am going to be the best centre-half back in the competition. And related to that throughout the book.

Speaker 3: 11:39

There's a big hairy, audacious goal theme that runs through the book and I decided my big hairy, audacious goal theme that runs through the book and I decided my big hairy, audacious goal, my BHAG would be, is I'm going to be the best defender in the competition. So I set that down and wrote about it. And why this is similar, related to the earlier answer I gave, is that when I was 17, I did goal setting and I wrote down have more confidence in myself, believe in myself more, and that's where it stopped, whereas when I wrote down I'm going to be the best defender in the competition. I kind of had a bit of a way that I was going to do that, and that is I'm just going to tell myself that I'm the best defender in the competition over and over every day. I'm going to visualize myself being the best defender in the competition every week before I go and play.

Speaker 3: 12:33

To be honest, at first I struggled a bit with it because I'm like it wasn't that long ago I was playing in the twos. I'm on a one-year deal. There's so many reasons why I am so not the best defender in the competition. But I controlled my self-talk and I just went over and over it again and what ended up happening was when I went into games, I was like I'd seen this movie before. I was like I believe I am the best defender in the competition. I'm going to go out there and I'm going to dominate. And I ended up having the best year of football of my career and we won the premiership, got all Australian and my career really took off from there.

Speaker 1: 13:18

So you changed your mindset, yep, and your mindset was from being a I I want to be good at everything to I'm going to be the best defender in the league and I believe in that outcome. And were there certain say, the mechanics of it? Was it your speed? Was it your ability to jump and spoil? Was it your physicalness? Were there some metrics, some mechanics behind that? You really focused on and set goals there. Like you know, bench press certain amount in the gym.

Speaker 3: 13:50

Yeah, I did reflect on myself as well. If I am a defender, so if I am going to be the best defender in the competition, how do I compare to the other good defenders in the competition? At the time? That was the likes of Matthew Scarlett, darren Glass, ben Rutten, and I've kind of did a bit of an audit. Well, how do I compare to those? And one thing I picked up is similar height, similar speed, but they're bigger and stronger than me. In a one-on-one against Nick Riewoldt, jonathan Brown, whoever, pavlich, whoever was the best at the time. That's where they were really good at. So I did focus in spending more time in the gym, made a bit of a pact to myself I wouldn't do another goal-kicking session again, because so often we all just kind of go out there and do it's hard not to.

Speaker 1: 14:45

I know that's what you do. As a kid, I know.

Speaker 3: 14:47

It's a bit of fun. But I was like it makes so much more sense for me to get someone just to kick high balls at me and I practice smashing them away as far as I can, and for me to practice snaps from the boundary 20 metres out. Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent. But yeah, I did do an audit of myself, spent more time in the gym, put on some size, got my strength up. But, to be honest, if I had to kind of pinpoint to one area, it wasn't the physical attributes, it wasn't the mechanics, it was more mental.

Speaker 3: 15:26

And I am of the view right now, even though I've been out of the industry for a while, every AFL team and if you're not an AFL fan, like every professional sporting team they all have hard pre-seasons. If you try and do a harder pre-season than someone else, maybe you might be able to get a 1% or 2% advantage here or there. But where I do think advantages lie in competitions professional sporting competitions is the mental side. There are teams that go out there on the weekend and are far more confident in their own ability and the team's ability to win than others. Now I'm not sure when this podcast is going to be released. Whether at the time of recording, you look at Hawthorne when they run out or Brisbane Lions and they look from the outside to me, they are very confident they're going to win. And at the time of recording maybe if you're a Carlton fan you won't like to hear this, but sometimes I look at that team run out and go. It does appear from the outside. You're worried about the outside noise.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Yeah, it's hard not to see that from when you're watching the game, the players and their mannerisms and simple things Like I coach a social men's football team. If you want to have a kick to it, we've got room for a couple more than Richmond Central's thirds.

Speaker 2: 16:53

Okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:56

But you know it's the same right. It's very much you know. You head up as a team. We're in it together. Let's go out there and let's give it a crack, let's believe we can get this done and we won. When I coached a couple of years ago we won the grand final. Yeah, there's a real mindset that we can go out there and we're going to win every single game. And you know, it just makes such a difference to you as a player if you've got that level of confidence.

Speaker 3: 17:21

Yeah, yeah. The more widely I read throughout my career, it wasn't whether it was Agassi's book and the struggles that he had in believing with himself, or books about the All Blacks and what Richie McCraw does before a game to prepare himself in terms of blank sheet of paper before every game to prepare Agassi. He has the self-doubts before every game, but he goes through a routine. Whilst he shaves his head before every tennis match, he starts the process off with the what-ifs and over the course of the next hour, he controls his self-talk and goes out there and goes I can win now. So yeah, I am a big believer in the mental side, whether it is related to football or it is also related to your work and your KPIs, goal setting, resilience, the markets. Whatever it is related to your role.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Yeah, because let's talk about your role now because you need to be resilient and focused. You know, if markets do come off substantially, stick into that goal, because it's easy to get caught up in what the media is saying about markets dropping off and lose sight and then, you know, end up selling at the bottom Yep, and then miss the bounce Yep. So you must be spending a lot of time educating your clients around. You know, sticking to the investment strategy. We've got the diversification in place to ensure they're not. You know, making the wrong decisions at the wrong time.

Speaker 3: 19:00

Yeah, so that's. There's soft skills there empathy, but I guess the life skills from football is the fact that these calls and these conversations, they need to be made. You need to get out there. Part of it is an update, the other is to reinforce the conversations that we had when these portfolios were set up, the conversations that we had when these portfolios were set up, ensuring that the clients are invested appropriately for their risk profile. They're diversified and often it is just a reminder that they're on track to achieve their objectives and goals.

Speaker 1: 19:43

And do you have much to do with the AFL at the moment?

Speaker 3: 19:48

The AFL. That's a very broad church, yes and no. So I'm involved in the Players Association. I sit on the AFL Players Association Investment Committee, so that's a part of the industry.

Speaker 1: 20:04

What does that involve?

Speaker 3: 20:05

What does that involve? Okay, so part of a player's salary is put aside each year for their retirement fund and that retirement fund whilst they've accumulated that, that gets invested and that grows over time, and then, when the player retires, they'll receive distributions from that for a set period of time, depending on how long they played for.

Speaker 1: 20:34

So it's effectively like a superannuation fund for players.

Speaker 3: 20:37

Yeah, yeah, but it's to assist with the transition, as opposed to retirement when someone's 60, 65. This is to assist with the transitions. Let's say someone is lucky enough to pay until their early 30s. This would kick in when they retire and go for about a 10-year period to ensure that, as they're transitioning their career, that they can meet their cash flow needs.

Speaker 1: 21:03

Yeah, so transitioning to their next career.

Speaker 3: 21:05

Yeah, yeah. So there's that. But other than that, like I'm very much a fan of the Sydney Swans and still got a soft spot for the Bombers, so I try to get to those games and fortunate enough that through my time I do get invited to the odd event and I love getting along to those.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Yeah, and what about the premiership reunions? Yes, Is that the best as a past player that's won a premiership. Yeah, because I know I've played in a local footy team and won grand finals and for me that's the most fun catching up with the guys. Very different, obviously a professional athlete, but still catching up with guys that I might not have seen for two, three, four, five years. And reminiscing that year that we won the flag.

Speaker 3: 21:55

Yeah, you're right. So I played at Essendon for five years under Kevin Sheedy, and while Sheeds and I didn't get along from time to time, there is one thing that I remember that he said and he was right is one of the best things about premierships are the reunions. I played lucky enough to play in three grand finals lost to 1-1. That was 2012. So we had our 10-year reunion in 22. And it was kind of a bit like going back to the first day at school. You know, some of these guys I haven't seen in. You know five, six, seven years and then within two minutes, it's like you know, we're just playing again.

Speaker 3: 22:35

Like the banter the abuse. They're like HR would have been very concerned about some of the conversation, but it was like we're 22 again, you know in the car rooms reminiscing and yeah, like, don't get me wrong, part of it was you remember this win or remember something like that, but more often than not it was stories from. It was the little things, yeah, the pranks.

Speaker 1: 22:59

Yeah, yeah, the pranks, yeah.

Speaker 3: 23:01

And that is certainly the camaraderie of working in an environment like that is something that I miss, but in saying that, it is something that I'm doing my best to foster where we are at Wilson's Advisory and our private wealth team there. So, whilst all our advisors have their own business that they focus in on, I'm trying to ensure that we've got a level of camaraderie and an environment that people can kind of bounce off and there is a level of team support, just to ensure that. You know, we all have our days when it's harder to get into the office, but I want to have an environment where you can feed off the energy of the room too.

Speaker 1: 23:46

Fostering that positive culture.

Speaker 3: 23:47

Yep exactly.

Speaker 1: 23:48

Yeah, no, that's great. So we've spoken a lot about your time as a player and also your time as a professional. Was there a time when you were at high school as a 15-year-old or 16-year-old where you thought I'm going to be a professional footballer?

Speaker 3: 24:07

I don't think there was a line in the sand where I didn't think that and then all of a sudden I did. It was more of a transition. What happened was when I was 15, I got picked in the Victorian under-15 team, which was a significant achievement. So that was where something probably started to become a bit more real and that's where I probably started to give up on summer sports to focus in on football throughout summer. And then I had a good year when I was 17 and Cobb started to want to catch up with me and check in with me throughout the season and I thought possibly a chance here.

Speaker 1: 24:54

And how much time do you because you're at high school and obviously you're studying how much time do you allocate to studying versus trying to get better as a 16, 17-year-old, with the goal of being drafted? Yeah, I know, it's a long time. No, no, no, no.

Speaker 3: 25:15

I don't think it was too binary. You had to pick one or the other. I had to make sacrifices along the way and certainly didn't have the social life that some of my schoolmates had that year, of the social life that some of my schoolmates had that year. But I worked hard when I was at school and around that and I worked hard when I was on with football and I think it probably comes back to some goal setting. Which I touched on before is, yes, I did want to get drafted that year but equally at the same time I also wanted to do commerce at Melbourne Uni. So, yeah, it was going after both those goals pretty hard.

Speaker 1: 25:52

Yeah. So then you obviously selected through the draft to go to Essendon. How far into your professional football journey did you start Like how many years in? And you started to study Because you did a Bachelor of.

Speaker 3: 26:08

Commerce. Is that right? Yeah, so I started straight away. So I played football professionally for 16 years. For 15 years straight.

Speaker 3: 26:21

I studied, admittedly part-time, but it was only the last year that I didn't study because I'd completed the Bachelor of Commerce and the Masters. But, yeah, part of the reason why I studied and worked whilst I played and there were years where I was both working and studying was like a fear of failure was like a fear of failure. Some people listening in might be aware of this, but I was never comfortable that I'd have guaranteed the career that I had. So I was always all in on my football and ensuring that I would have a good career, but at the same time, on the days off, I wanted to spend that studying, just on the odd chance that if I did get a tap on the shoulder and say, ted, you cut from the squad, that I would have something to fall back on.

Speaker 3: 27:21

And I'm lucky to have parents that encourage that. I'm lucky to have parents that encourage that. But I'm also lucky that when I was at Essendon, there were guys that I looked up to at that club the likes of James Heard, chris Heffernan, mark Bolden, scott Lucas and on their days off. They were premiership players at Essendon. On their days off they went and studied or worked. I was like, well, if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me as a 17-year-old. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:49

Well, I give you, you know, James Heard, the best player in the competition.

Speaker 3: 27:52

Yeah, if he's got time to study and be the best. At the time he was going to JB Weir. He'd done an engineering degree and I was like, well, you know, there's a quote by Isaiah Thomas, and sorry for the tangent here. For those not familiar, isaiah Thomas is this phenomenal basketball player through the 80s and 90s NBA basketball. The line that he said is if all he's remembered for is being a successful basketball player, then he's failed with the rest of his life. I was lucky enough to play football until I was 32, 33. Hopefully I can live until I'm 90 plus. I don't want the highlight of my life to be something that happened when I was 32, 33. I would love it if I've got equally as exciting passions, goals and challenges ahead of me, and that's what I'm pursuing.

Speaker 1: 28:50

Yeah, that's really insightful, and you talked about working and studying while playing. Can you share that journey with us? You know, your first job as a finance professional Well, maybe not a professional, but maybe as a finance intern, or maybe not a professional, but maybe as a finance intern and talk about that journey and how was it doing your first job? You know coming into the office as a professional footballer, but also, you know, sitting at the desk and learning about financial markets.

Speaker 3: 29:23

Yeah. So I'd completed the Bachelor of Commerce and I didn't know which way I wanted to go with that and, as listeners are probably aware, in a commerce degree you're doing management, accounting, economics, marketing, finance. It's a bit of everything. So I started doing some work experience at Citigroup in the institutional research sales area. I'd go in once a week On my day off. I'd get up at 6.30. I'd be in the office probably by 7.30, and I loved it, absolutely loved it, and from there that gave me conviction that I wanted to go ahead and do a Master's of Applied Finance. So I think I started this in 2011 or 2012. On my day off we'd get one day off a week. On my day off I'd go into the city and work and through the nights I'd study.

Speaker 3: 30:17

This is whilst being a professional footballer. It was during those years I played like I was flat out. It was during those years I played the best footy of my life. I don't know why it happened I didn't have any kids but I do think it was just I didn't have time to worry about kind of. What I might have done in the previous game was just kind of get on with it.

Speaker 1: 30:37

And is it a bit like it's not all football make or break like there is.

Speaker 3: 30:42

Yeah, I think part of it might be. If I had a bad game I could say well, you know, yeah, it's not all football. I've got an idea of what I want to do next. So live a bit in the moment and enjoy this, because the career is finite. Anyway, just to kind of close that out, I think it was in the second year of working at Citigroup in institutional research sales. So you're on the sales side here. You're speaking to fund managers, Hedge funds, yeah, yeah, yeah, about research, that at the time Citigroup had purchased what I was getting. I kind of reflect on what I learned that day and what was happening was I'd go and meet with these fund managers and I had a really interesting day, but all they wanted to do was talk to me about football and I was like I'm not actually learning, Like I'm not actually learning a lot here.

Speaker 1: 31:37

You're teaching them about footy right Well, I'm just having a chat about footy.

Speaker 3: 31:41

So it was after two years of doing that that I decided I need to get over the buy side, which is just jargon to say, listen, I need to work under a fund manager as an analyst, studying stocks to learn. So I approached a fund manager If I could work under him. He was a gun and I did that for four years. I thought that was the path I was going to go down to be an analyst. But an opportunity to join a when my footy career ended, an opportunity to join a startup in Melbourne, was too good to knock back.

Speaker 1: 32:19

So it took a real pivot. So that's a funds management startup.

Speaker 3: 32:22

So yes and no. So it's a robo-advisor. Now that's a term that many in Australia won't be familiar with or aware of, but a robo-advisor provides digital investment advice, so some will be familiar with this. But to provide compliant investment advice in Australia, just because of regulations and compliance, it is very expensive and the Royal Commission has only made that even more expensive. So there's somewhere between only 10% and 20% of Australians that can afford advice, which is quite sad. We built something to target, let's call it, the mass market that can provide someone, let's say, that may have inherited $50,000. We could provide them with professional investment advice from recommendations, statement of advice, execution, rebalancing, et cetera, and reporting for something around $10 a month, which is a great solution. And, yeah, very proud to say that that business was bought out by NAB.

Speaker 1: 33:37

Yeah, okay, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's great. And then you obviously. Now you ended up at Ted Wilson's advisory. So what advice would you give a young football player that might have been drafted, say, 2025, in their first year of football, their mindset is I want to be a 250-game player, premiership player, the best and a half back in a competition. What would be your advice to them? You know, obviously thinking beyond football, because it may pan out that way and may not, but even if you do have that successful career, like you said, you've still got 60 years of life.

Speaker 3: 34:17

Yep, there's so many different ways I can answer that, from advice you know, related to, you know, football career, to investing, to career development. I'll approach it from an investing angle first and you can let me know if you want to take it anywhere from there. But I think if you're lucky enough to leave the game with a home, with a house, then what a fantastic opportunity that football's given. The reality is that footballers, which and they are just a portion of Australians in the community, so many of Australians and I'm putting footballers in this category too see property as a pathway to wealth. So there are footballers out there that you know they might have been lucky enough to get a home deposit, get in the property market, and then they'll go listen, let's get another home, let's get another house, let's get an investment house.

Speaker 3: 35:20

So the first piece of advice is let's say listen, if you're lucky enough to get a home, let's start thinking about diversifying, because if your career is cut short I don't know you do need a year or two and you need 50, 100k or something like that, you know, just to help you transition to the next. You can't sell a bathroom. Yeah, you need a level of liquidity that can assist with that. And also, you know, you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. We've seen, you know, throughout Australia, different states perform differently at the same period of time, whereas we're recording this in Victoria right now Probably market hasn't done too much down here for a while it's gone backwards the last couple of years.

Speaker 3: 36:07

Yeah, yeah yeah, I won't go down a bit of a can of worms. There's different reasons why people may or may not have thought of why that's happened. Yeah, but part of which is land tax and related items. So I've kind of deviated there. But I'd speak about the benefits of diversifying and having a level of liquidity in that portfolio. So you know it should it be, but it also can diversify. But then you know there's also, if you want to go down the path, you know recommendations and advice around career development and career paths, which I'd speak with them as well.

Speaker 1: 36:42

Yeah, and any advice. I've spoken to a few ex-football players that have come to me, or ex-rugby players that have come to me and say you know they want to look at going to finance. I know, when they're 32, 33, had a very successful career as a sports professional, but they've done nothing during that period and I say, well, it's quite challenging because you know you're competing against, ultimately, a graduate. You know, and if you can get some experience along the way while you are in your developmental years of your life and you know, your late teens, your 20s, try and do that. Would you recommend that as well?

Speaker 3: 37:23

Yes, but I'd probably want to take it back a step because sometimes people will use that exact sentence you said I want to get into finance and to change a word in that sentence. If someone came to me and said I want to get into sport, I kind of go like all right, can you just break that down a bit more? One why do you want to get into it? What are your strengths? Is there an area of sport you want to get into? So finance is such a broad term. That can be and I'm on the spot here.

Speaker 3: 38:01

But everything from someone sitting behind a computer screen 10 hours a day punching out models and discounted cash flows, which is very much needed by a part of the industry and for potentially an introvert, they will love that. They will love this problem-solving ability. And at the other end of the spectrum, it could be someone that never looks at a computer screen and they're in a distribution business development role just getting deals done, and they might be generalising here an extrovert. They do a lot of lunches, they do meetings and everything like that. They have budgets that they need to hit and they're very good at sales. That's another end of the area of the industry. So if someone did say to me in finance, I'd probably say what are your strengths? What draws you to the industry? Often it is I want to be paid well, and I'll go give me a bit more than that, because I think you'll get bored pretty quickly if that's your only motivation.

Speaker 1: 39:13

Yeah, there needs to be a bit of purpose and drive.

Speaker 3: 39:19

Yeah, I don't know if people listening in are familiar with the Japanese ikigai how they frame up that way of thinking about what you want to do and the reasons why you want to do it, but I think that's a great place to start. Yeah no, that's great.

Speaker 1: 39:34

And then you tell me about Athletic Ventures. Oh yeah, so I'm not too familiar with Athletic Ventures, but it seems like you and a few other sporting people are a part of this.

Speaker 3: 39:46

Yeah, so I can't lay claim to. It's Matt DeBoer, former AFL footy player with GWS Giants and the Freo Dockers. That is the brains behind it and, along with his business partner, matthew NBA basketball, former NBA basketball, matthew Dell of Dover.

Speaker 1: 40:06

Is he retired officially Because he played for Melbourne United this year, didn't he?

Speaker 3: 40:10

Yeah, yeah and I saw a LinkedIn post that went out today which thanked people for his time at Melbourne United.

Speaker 1: 40:17

So, anyway, I'd love to get him on the podcast as well to wishlist, maybe an intro for you would be nice. All right on the podcast it's on the to wish list. Maybe an intro for you would be nice alright.

Speaker 3: 40:28

Well, so Matt yeah, he's the brains behind it.

Speaker 3: 40:33

I think he recognised there is a bit of a war to get access to the best private investment opportunities.

Speaker 3: 40:43

Let's call it a Canva or a GYG if they need to do a funding round, there is a queue of private equity firms queuing up to be able to participate in these deals Because, by nature of being private, they're not listed on the stock market where there is an exchange for anyone and everyone to be able to put a bid on the price and get access to the deal.

Speaker 3: 41:08

So Matt, in his wisdom, came up with the idea and said well, you know, if we built a community of current and former athletes that all have audiences and networks, we might be able to get in the front of the queue for the value add that we can provide that a private equity firm in Collins Street, Melbourne or, you know, circular key of Sydney or wherever it is, won't be able to provide. So you know, for any direct-to-consumer business like Guzman and Gomez, which Athletic Ventures did participate in, they could have picked any private equity firm they wanted to receive capital from. Why they decided that Athletic Ventures would be part of that is because Guzman Gomez, whilst it being fast food. It is healthy food. Athletic Ventures is a network full of professional athletes. There is an obvious crossover there with you know, if you can have Stephanie Gilmore, Pat Cummins, Toby Green chomping away on a Cali burrito whilst they've invested behind that too, it's definitely alignment.

Speaker 3: 42:31

Yeah, there is a real brand alignment there. So, yeah, so I'm part of Athletic Ventures. I think they're doing great things, but nothing more than a silent investor as part of that community.

Speaker 1: 42:44

Yeah well, that's really insightful. Thank you for sharing, and that might draw us to the end. I've really enjoyed the chat, ted, so thank you very much for coming in. Thanks again, ted. It's been a pleasure hearing your story from a successful professional athlete to a successful finance professional and leading a team in Melbourne at Wilson's Advisory. So thank you, thanks very much for having me Cheers. Thanks for listening this week. Stay tuned for our next episode and keep up to date with us by following the Finance Friends podcast on Instagram and TikTok Plus. Connect with us and our guests over on our LinkedIn page, all linked in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 43:27

Disclaimer this podcast exists for informational and entertainment purposes only. The personal opinions of the speaker and guests do not represent the opinion of the party. If this recording contains reference to financial products, that reference does not constitute advice nor recommendations, and may not be reliable.