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#030 Re-inventing yourself with Sarah Lal
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Episode Transcript
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Sharad Lal: Hi everyone, welcome to How to Live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host, Sharad Lal. This is episode 76. I am very excited to share this great news with you. I've recently sold my agency, 24 Inc to award winning video content company, Casual Films.
It's a huge milestone for me, and it means I can fully focus on growing the how to live company.
beyond the podcast, we're on a mission to help people live more purposeful lives. In the months ahead, I can't wait to share all the exciting stuff that's going to come up. As I embark on this new chapter, today's episode couldn't be more fitting. We dive into the art of reinventing with someone many of us have grown up watching on television, the legendary sports presenter, John Dykes.
John has had an illustrious career in sports journalism. working with some of the greatest names, David Beckham, the Williams sisters, Sir Alex Ferguson, and more. He's here to share stories from his time in sports and the valuable lessons he's learned along the way.
But that's not all. John is now making a bold transition into the corporate world, focusing on leadership and training. He's leveraging his deep knowledge from the world of sports to help become more engaged and effective. In today's conversation, we'll explore how he's navigated the shift, the doubts he's faced, the skills he's drawn upon, and most importantly, the mindset that's driven his success.
There's so much we can learn from his journey. Especially if you're considering your own evolution in work and life. But before we dive in, thank you very much for your support. We're in the top 3 percent of all podcasts globally and listened to in over 140 countries. If you haven't already, please follow us. Now, without further ado, here's the incredible John Dykes.
Sharad: Hi, John. Good morning. Great to see you here in Singapore. How are you doing this morning?
John: I'm very well, Sharad. Thank you very much. It's always a good morning in Singapore. It is. It is.
Sharad: Thank you very much for making time for our podcast. And there's so much to talk about. Everyone in the sports world knows you. They've seen your face. It's that friendly, familiar face. Now you're moving to the corporate world. Is there a memorable story from the sports world that comes to mind that we can start with?
John: Well, yeah, sure.
One story I would tell that I think informed a lot of what I did involved Serena Williams. I was over in Hong Kong, I interviewed Steffi Graf, Anna Kornikova, the big names, and then the Williams sisters who were just starting out
Kornikova and Steffi Graf, they were great, but they were just media trained. they gave you nothing. they've done a million interviews and they would do a million more. Whereas the Williams sisters were new to it, they had this freshness about them, almost a naivety, and they were so enthusiastic.
Now, their manager at the time was a guy who spoke some Mandarin. He was an American, but he'd spent some time in Beijing. So, he'd been training them in some Mandarin, and they were practising. And I said, well, actually, you need some Cantonese here.
Serena's back there. Basically asking me about Cantonese. And then we did this great interview in which she offered a lot. She gave some really positive answers and halfway through she threw a word in. It was quite a long word. And she looked at me, she said, was that the right word?
She said, I try to learn a new word every day. And I try to throw it into an interview or use it, in a practical context if I can. What I took from that, Sharad, was that she had trusted me.
She knew what her role in the interview was. She knew what I needed. She was trying to empower me via giving me something fresh and original. She respected the process and she also understood the learning mentality, growth, ability to say, look, I'm here to learn.
I'm not just here to be arrogant and tell you that I'm the next best thing in tennis. And this is someone who went on to win 23 Grand Slam titles. that stayed with me, and I'd like to think that informed a lot of what I did. What a wonderful story, John. Thank you very much for painting the pre social media picture, where you suddenly find yourself with people who open up because there's no danger of them being caught out. back in those days, As a reporter, journalist, even presenter, you were told it's not about you.
You're just somebody who's privileged to be interviewing them, it was even frowned upon to stand next to Serena Williams or whoever you're interviewing and ask for a, It wasn't a selfie back then.
Nowadays. Very often it's full of influencers who don't really want to ask a question about the match or anything. They just have to get that selfie with the star
So it's, it's really flipped, it is about you. It's like, how do you build your personal brand? Even though you're trying to get to know a sports person better, it's a lot about how do you build your own brand?
And that in some way takes away from the purity of what this interaction is supposed to be about. That's absolutely right. you hit on a really good point there. Something that comes back to me on a regular basis. Now we have personal branding experts, we're encouraged to build our brand, to promote our brand.
I found that my brand evolved organically what I mean by that is, when I was working on ESPN, I didn't say my name anywhere in the show, because I knew there would be a little graphic caption that would come up a lower third, as we called it, saying my name, and I knew that I would be promoted across the channel.
I never felt the need. We used to do a show called Football Focus, which was a very popular chat show, precursor to podcasts, I think, in many ways.
Many would have seen that, I've seen that show, I know many people listening would have seen that show.
yeah. I would walk into a coffee shop in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, somewhere around Asia, where People wouldn't always be watching English as their first language. And I'd walk in and a bunch of young people would point at me and go, ESPN. Or Football Focus.
They wouldn't say John Dykes. And I used to think, wow, that's the power of that brand. so what happened was I developed a brand almost in association with that. It was only because of that people started saying to me, you do have a brand, whether it's impartial interviewing or whether it's credibility or authenticity or association with the biggest leagues.
It was only then, 10, 15, maybe 20 years into my career that I started actually thinking, okay, what is this brand of mine? What do I do with it? how did that thought process, let's go into that. Once you start thinking that, I do have a brand and let me be a little more conscious on how I develop it.
What did you think about it and how did you go about it? I'm going to tell you one more anecdote
Those who follow cricket will have heard of the late Richie Beno. he was the doyen of cricket commentators, mainly because he had this very minimalist, sparse style where he would never just babble on. He would let the pictures talk but his words would always be entirely appropriate.
They would just encapsulate a moment. So he was famous for that. My producer did me the great honour of introducing me to the great man, Richie Benaud. he was very flatteringly aware of it.
Who I was, that I was starting out in broadcasting with ESPN and what I'd done so far. And he gave me a piece of advice, He said, the secret to great commentary
is answering a question just as it's beginning to form in the viewer's mind. Now think that one through a little bit. What that's doing is this is really saying if a viewer or a listener is watching or listening to something that's unfolding.
This commentary team is going to trust in the knowledge, the experience, the insights that they have. And they're going to
make this a collaborative affair. Because the viewer or listener is subconsciously beginning to process what's happening.
But if you just pop in there and effectively go, as you'll have noticed, we're seeing a lot of the balls being delivered on this side, you're involving and empowering the audience. It's this organic collective experience whereby you go on a journey together. And I love that. So bringing it back to the brand, I would have said that was my brand in essence as a broadcaster, as a person, somebody that tried to Relate to, respect, empower the audience and take them on a journey and have this wonderful, fun experience where we shared all these great things in sport.
You talked about Richie Benaud, what you learned from him, that lesson of there's an audience, it's collaborating, you're not standing out on your own and everyone's in the same plane going through that journey.
I love that. I feel as you're moving to speaking on stage, as you're moving to the corporate world, that becomes a youth skill as you help people feel part of it. It's not that you are presenting. I also feel what you talked about in terms of Serena Williams earlier and others, putting people at ease.
So there's trust. there's a conversation that's co created. People are speaking openly. I think that's all related. And that's a huge skill. Having seen you present, having known you a little bit now, I think that's a huge skill you bring in where you're taking people with you, there's trust, and you're moving forward.
How do you see this coming into play as you're now moving into the business world?
John: I wasn't in any way surprised that my ability to story tell and to speak pitch and present would be useful in the corporate world, because as we all know, that's a fundamental part of what everybody does.
I wasn't in any way surprised that relationship building and developing networks and contacts was going to be important,
So these are two things that I think turned around very quickly. The reason I thought to myself, I can offer something here, was when I found myself In nominally, what was a broadcast relationship with a client, which over the course of the build up to the project, switched far more into me being brought into boardrooms to actually sit at a strategic level.
It was also a project which came with no small amount of danger and risk attached to it, which meant that there was a lot of stress around. But what I discovered is that one of the key skills you have as a live broadcaster is the ability to handle crises. effectively with sport, the beauty of it is that anything can happen. Things do go wrong.
Technology can break down. People can make mistakes. you learn to think on your feet, to stay calm, to communicate, and to have pathways and patterns in place that mitigate against a complete meltdown. the ability to make decisions on the fly and to compartmentalise, to problem solve whilst you're addressing something.
I found in the course of this project that these were skills that people were very dependent on me for. So that as much as anything made me think,I should get out and do this more. Wonderful.
I just want to make a quick point on this, which is so good that you looked at yourselves in terms of skill, this of course, storytelling relationships, but it's crisis management.
Which is not an ideal term. It's not an ideal term, but as I know what we mean, with it. as
I see companies across, they're being disruptive there, there's a crisis that all kinds of things are happening. along with the other skills of storytelling so you can communicate well.
Relationships are huge. and that's like a transferable skill that comes in. And remember, they're all bundled together.
communication lies at the heart of this crisis management. The stakeholder buy- ins and relationships are also part of that.
So it's all bundled together.
Very excited to go into that. But I think before we jump in, You're doing so well in sports broadcasting. Why the corporate world? Why this shift? How did that come about?
John: Okay, that's a really good question.
I'm British by birth. But by 17, I left. I went to Hong Kong because my family was there.
I then found my way, thanks to some wonderful people who helped me along. the South China Morning Post newspaper, where I was lucky to rise through the ranks from being a junior sort of trainee to a sports reporter to a feature writer to editor to all sorts of things. Then I got into TV. with Star Sports in Hong Kong, which then became ESPN Star, but that required a move to Singapore in 97 when they made a joint venture. I'd been to Singapore, I loved it,
I made my home in Singapore for years. With the rise of ESPN Star, we bought the Premier League. When I started there, I covered football, European and Asian. I covered rugby, cricket, Formula One, super bikes, MotoGP, and golf. I was there for Tiger Woods, Calendar Slam in Augusta, tennis.
I did Wimbledon a couple of times with Vijay Amitraj, US Open. I covered All kinds of everything. The Premier League was the game changer, because suddenly I was rolling out this coverage to an Asia wide audience initially of the world's biggest football franchise, and it wasn't unnoticed in London, and then the guys at the Premier League came up with the concept of rolling out a global football franchise. service, which was a smart play.
you could just buy it because it came with a ready made channel. they said to me, come over to England.
I went over there and it was great. to roll out this never done before, global content service to work from London I was there on the ground. I had seven years, they renewed my contract a couple times, but halfway through, I started doing the training with my other clients around the world. Halfway through my time in England, I began to realise that, in any presenting role, you've got a sell by date.
Because, there's always going to come a time when somebody might want to freshen it up. my face was all over the screen for years and years. So I began thinking to myself, maybe I should try and do some more work in the UK. And I just couldn't crack the market.
they'd say,you're 50 years old already, or close to 50. You haven't ever worked here. The audience doesn't know you. In the end I saw opportunities again back in Asia. I And thankfully, a couple of people at Fox Sports who were based out of Singapore at time said, come back to Singapore.
So I came back and they gave me my own show three times a week. This was more along the lines of a chat show. This timeIt was the John Dyke show.
So my brand was out there.
So I came back now. knowing that in this part of the world, Southeast Asia, not necessarily in India, where you see a tremendously vibrant broadcasting situation, sports broadcasting has been under threat for a while.
I had to make a decision. My life decision was that I love Singapore. I became a Singaporean. My wife's Singaporean.
My daughters, who are grown up now, are both Singaporean. This is home. and it's lovely to know that this is where I will be. But, this is not anymore. the hub of regional sports broadcasting that doesn't exist.
Now I'm blessed that people still hire me to commentate.
I do various bits and pieces for different, Asian football broadcasters. so there's work, but what's been really exciting is saying to myself, let's find something that goes beyond that. And I now have a website and I now have a marketing collateral that advertises my services as not just a presenter and a host or moderator, but also as a keynote speaker, a corporate trainer, a media trainer.
This is really huge in that I am now going out there and saying, look, this is officially what I am. It's not, Oh, he might be able to come and do that. He's the TV guy. No, no, this is something I've been doing for a while. And this is something that we're actually going to build now, because I really firmly believe that all the things I told you earlier on have led me to this position whereby all of those learnings, insights, connections, I think, have a relevance.
And I just think there's a market for it. Certainly it is.
Sharad: Thanks for sharing that story. And John,
This is so relevant to people across industries, two of the things that he said, I know I have a sell by date, which people realise as well in different careers. And second, the industry is shifting and changing and my relevance there isn't a lot now from that point, you went and shifted, what else is out there?
What should I do? How was that process? Like, how long did it take? Were you depressed for a year and said, this is unfair, we are celebrity people. How was that process, and how did it shift to let me look at possibilities from here?
John: Yeah, I think you have to be honest about it. You have to accept that when the primary source of income starts to cut down, you look elsewhere. What I did was I ran round and round in circles a year or so when the Fox channel shut down.
They actually offered me a show for nine to a year. My own John Dyke show shifted onto Disney Plus, it was really bad. obviously that wasn't going to be what I was doing anymore.
What I realised was that even though it seemed that I was doing a very disparate bunch of roles, all of them came back to this business of me training or mentoring. A company in Indonesia bought the rights to the Premier League and as well as their Bahasa language free to air, they wanted to put out a premium English service as well.
And the bosses came to me and said, we need some help in how to do this. We've got something really cool. team of production staff. So I went in there and it wasn't just a question of presenting. I literally went in there and said, look, this is how you're going to structure your show.
These are the guests that I would suggest you use. This is the budget that you probably will need for this. I trained their staff in how to put out wall to wall matches on a Saturday and Sunday. And I loved it.
It is a fascinating project because yes, I did end up popping up in front of the camera and hosting the Premier League again. But the really stimulating part of it was developing this team,
I was so proud to leave them and say to the guys who'd hired me, you now have the best sports production team in Indonesia.
So that excited me, and in various ways I've done similar bits and pieces of work to that. But what was also interesting was a couple of people came to me and said,
we want you to come in almost as a mentor when you commentate. We've got some young talent And we'd like you to come in and just try and work with them.
And so that's something I've really found interesting. And the people have turned to me and said, we see you now as this kind of advisory figure. So again, it all plays, Sharad, I think back into the same thing. So whilst all this was going on, it was exciting, but it was also very erratic, all of us. need a bit of security. So I thought the one way to take charge of this situation is to actually build my own offering. So that people will still come to me and I will go off and work on projects, but I want to have a tick over and I want to have something that is there for people to see, particularly the corporates, right?
This guy. Can come and over five or 10 sessions can talk to our leadership or,people will book me for keynotes or more hosting and moderating because the other message I had to get out there was, it's not just sport. American express came to me and said, look, we've got this leadership academy.
Could you come in and say, it's not a sport. So I sat and moderated a panel there, Milken Institute got me in for their Asia Summit last year and I sat and did something with
two ice dancers, the Shibutani siblings, who are actually now pushing out into their lives post skating and they're now photographers and artists and filmmakers. Yeah, fascinating. This gives me a foundation, Shahrod, I think, and I'd welcome your take on it, because I think this is what I'm looking to do, to have this solid underpinning.
Wonderful. I'll just pin back the lesson as I took it, and this could be applicable to so many people who are reinventing themselves. You had a certain understanding of your brand, your appeal, your skills, and then other people saw a broader version of it. So the Indonesia Channel said, John's done this for years.
He can help us set this up. You did that and you enjoyed it and you like there's something beyond my brand training that I can do. Folks then started getting into the corporate world and then you realise I can actually do stuff in leadership because it's related to what I do. People are seeing me like this and I'm enjoying it.
Let me define myself as someone who can do these things so that there are many others out there. Who can see me like that? Did that process work like that? And how are you now defining yourself in this whole corporate leadership space?
What I very quickly realised is that it wasn't enough to say, Communication, crisis management relationship building, networking. These are all things you can use. In the corporate environment what I needed to do was work from the other end. One thing I learned about the corporate world is that it's incredibly pragmatic in a way that funnily enough, sport and broadcast wasn't in my experience.
I found very often that we were making great content, but we weren't always aware whether that was actually making money.
Or whether it was a viable business. And I think that's true today. That's interesting to me.
So what I did, Sharad, was I worked it from the other end. I started saying to people, alright, let's go with a completely blank slate. You tell me what learning outcomes, what tangible results as an L& D department, or whatever you may want?
What's the bottom line? And then I'll work back towards that by going. If you tell me that we need our team to be more like this,Then what I'll do is I'll go back and find that I've seen, done and experienced that I can relate to that.
And this was the most important revelation. This has only come for me in the last few months. I spent two years plus running around doing all these various projects, occasionally, going and saying, I'm here to talk about leadership. Someone also said to me, what you don't want is you don't want to stand on stage, deliver a sensational keynote and have a bunch of people come up to you and say, I loved that.
Sharad: Brilliant. All right, What you want is what you want someone to say,that was just the first of a series that you're going to give us. you obviously have the learnings that we need. So those two things are really informing what I've been doing now. Understanding what is needed and then finding something that delivers that.
And crucially developing a repeatable progressive going back to my thing about this being a journey that we go on an organic learning process product that people will want to keep coming back to. That's wonderful, John.
what you're saying is, yes, I can talk about sports, but that's one part. Let me see what they need. What do they need in the organisation? That's a different entity. There's profit, there's engagement, there's a hundred things. What is the problem and how do I connect sports so we can create something that could be useful?
That's one. And then, of course, we do it on a sustained basis as a journey. Yeah. Is there any example of an area you found in the leadership space that was useful and how did you link it back to I think when I look at the leadership lessons that I've learned, they break down into the key learnings that I would say are fundamental to everything I do.
John: Communication, but more than communication, I do something where I talk about Jose Mourinho. And Jose Mourinho has this incredible, very clear cut identity, and he's always reminding you of it. He holds his hand up with a certain number of fingers to tell you how many times he's won a certain competition.
His entire message is, I'm about winning, and if you hire me and if you work with me, we will go on a journey together where we will win. I think that's a really important one because people talk about communication and messaging within their team. But the thing about the Mourinho lesson is that he was entirely consistent and repeatable as well.
I do something now where I talk about all the different strands that go together to make a successful team.
Or a successful product. I talk about the fact that you have to engage with all the stakeholders. That you have to have a very common purpose. You have to have Very clear cut message and communication. Your recruitment has to be right.
Now this is where I would bring in Sir Alex Ferguson, for example.
Recruitment and reinvention. Two Manchester managers, Ferguson and Guardiola, are past masters of this. Ferguson's was, the minute you win something, you're already planning to win it next time. And that might involve making harsh decisions, getting rid of the likes of David Beckham or Roy Keane. You're constantly refreshing your team.
You're working with a purpose and a focus in mind. You're looking at your resources and how they can best achieve your goals. Pep Guardiola, for example, is constantly reinventing the way football is played, reinventing the roles of his employees, his players. All of these things I find at leadership level resonate.
Sharad: 100%. I remember talking to you, maybe it was just two months back, and you were talking about Alex Ferguson, all these guys.
you've developed it so well now. And there's also form to it. How is that work that you have these ideas, but putting a to it, creating a program, relating it, then maybe brochures and How's that entire process work?
John: Well, this has been a really important couple of months.You're right. And what I've realised is that in all of this, You can't do it on your own particularly when you're taking a step into an area that's new to you. You have to find mentors. You have to find organisations, networks, any resources you can find that will just ease you along.
You, for example, Sharad, you're a tremendous source of guidance and counsel. The fact that we're sitting here doing here, we're working through a progression and a story, but I found a branding person to just fine tune what it is that I'm about.
Very often people go into speaking or coaching. Just a corporate background or some kind of professional background. I come to it having done it all my life. I've always been a storyteller. I've always been a speaker. I'm comfortable on screen on stage. So in a way, that's not what I need to learn.
It doesn't mean that I don't recognize there are things I do need to learn because being a keynote speaker or a trainer comes with a different skill set.What I'm fascinated by is monetizing things, structuring things, selling things.
And you've noticed that in the space of two months, I'm doing that. So what I've been trying to do is look at learning outcomes and work my way back towards how I tell the stories that lead to them.
Now, I'm sitting and I'm building a team. I'm looking at how I tell stories and the best way they'll resonate. I'm also at the same time building business tools. What do I do when I start getting orders?
How am I going to handle this? What's my pricing strategy going to be like? How do I learn this? Where do I go and practice? I started, I trained, I've been training one of the things we haven't spoken about which is a bit of a no brainer for me is I've been doing some speaking skills training.
I was working recently with somebody who's an investment analyst. and this guy was fascinating because he said to me, look, I talked to clients, I talked to my own colleagues and I'm recommending funds and fund managers and markets.
I spent all my time pitching and presenting, but he said, I think I could be better at it.
So I said, show me what you do.And the beauty of it is that I may not know the complexities of the Indian equity market. But when someone's trying to tell somebody that they should be investing in it, or they should be a little bit wary of this,I pretty much knew that I could upgrade his ability to pitch and sell and tell stories hugely.
And over a series of sessions we put together, the transformation has been remarkable.
Because I'm saying, okay, how do I apply what I've got to this context? And I'm willing to bet that this guy's results are going to really improve. Fascinating, John, as now I'm taking the lessons out, even for people in other industries where you've got transferable skills that work so well because of which you're able to help people, whatever field they are in storytelling.
But there's another bunch of skills which you've never experienced, which you need to build the commercialization skills. Yeah. And earlier you never needed to do it, but now you understand that's important. All of this is good, but I need to commercialise what I'm doing. So what is the pricing? How do I sell it?
How do I make these programs? How do I make it repeatable? That's another skill you're getting into. So as people reinvent themselves, there'll be new learnings that they need to get into. Which becomes important. Yeah. you've got to know that it's not a total restart.
You come to whatever it is that you're deciding to do now, partly because of what you've been. you mustn't ignore the skills that you do have and the character that you have, because what's the point in that? Are you going to write off 10 or five or 20 years of your life?
I don't think so. But what you do have to do is you have to have a very, almost brutally clear sense of your shortcomings and knowledge gaps. How do you do that? If, if you don't mind me, you've achieved success, but now you're going to another area.
How do you get that brutal assessment? You, you talk to people, Sharad. And, in my case, like I said, I spoke to a couple of people and said, Hey, it's me. I'm this famous guy and I've got these great stories to tell. a couple of people said, we're not into sports.
So my challenge now is to still use the sport, but effectively, just using it as case studies and lessons. get into what's valuable.
I've got a close friend who said to me, you're now in a position, John, where you're not just a respected sporting authority, but you're also a trainer. what was interesting was he did it, you're talking about brutal. He did it in a way that he basically said, you're far more just an entertaining after dinner speech. You're far more than just a couple of great anecdotes and a couple of slides on stage.
You're more than that.you got more to offer. And in a way he was sort of grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me and going, come on. if you're going to go this way, you've got to go all the way. And you've got to actually bring positive, constructive, viable, profitable earnings for people from this.
And that was so good. And that's what I've liked about this, because I'm going out and I'm saying to people, hey, I'm doing this. And by and large, they're like, oh, cool, great. But
one or two people have gone, yeah, so what? What are you actually going to do?
And what we all need. Someone to, not brutally. But just candid. positive assessment of what you still need to do.
Sharad: John, that's so well put. We of course need people who give you the truth, but you also need cheerleaders like the person who told you're more than who you think you are.
And he wants you to believe that. How did that process go to believe that you actually belong? You're more than that. You're able to make a difference in these leadership. How's that process going?
John: That one is it's an ongoing process
It's going to be prone to impostor syndrome, self doubt, but then again, I've worked in that career my whole life, Sharad.
You won't find a more neurotic bunch of people than TV presenters and those who work in that public eye. It happens. part of you says, why am I on this screen? What am I doing here? Do I really look like that?
I've had to deal with occasional bouts of self questioning and doubt throughout my career, and you learn how to deal with that. What you do is you tell yourself, that you've done this before, you tell yourself that people are hiring you to do this, that people trust you and respect what you do.
You tell yourself that there's a process that you go through to make this good. and you remind yourself that you have something to offer and it's going to benefit people.
The pitch is far harder than the delivery, you're very nervous about it, is it going to work?
Have we got the right stories here? Is the guest going to be the right guest? But then suddenly you're on there, the red light comes on the camera, you're live, and you just deliver.
One of the greatest enemies you can have is inertia. Because with inertia comes doubt and fear and negativity. So you have to keep putting a foot in front of another. You have to keep getting on that stage or getting back on the computer and emailing someone saying, Would you like this draft?
Have I got the messaging right this time? And that's important. Wonderful point. John, one of the things that struck me in all the
I've had with you, even while at this stage of reinventing yourself, you're living in Singapore, there's some financial pressure, there's stress whether it's going to work out or not.
You seem to have a phenomenal attitude. There's humility, there's enthusiasm, curiosity,
Determination, quiet determination. How have you worked on the mindset? Are you naturally gifted with a mindset like this? no. I wish I could say that. to all those things that you said, there are also sleepless nights. There are also mortgages to be paid, kids to be put through college, and there are also horrible moments of self doubt and fear and questioning,
whether you've made the right move and how it is that your life has come to this point.
That comes back to my ability to compartmentalise and to manage. I have an ability to compartmentalise the way my brain works. I could be sitting here talking to you as I am right now, but another little compartment in my box could very easily be listening to a conversation going on. The producer realised quite early, and a lot of my producers realised that they can actually talk to me whilst I'm talking.
The reason I'm using this is I use this technique when things overwhelm me, I'm confronted by financial stress or something's fallen apart and things aren't good. But I somehow managed to just get to that little place in my head and an overview and look down on it and go, look, okay, this is happening and this is bad.
So that's how I do it. I try to compartmentalise. It's a bit like when you have pain. I suffer a lot of, I have, I've had a knee that's been rebuilt a couple of times, and one day it will be replaced, and
I've had a lot of work done.
It hurts all the time, and I compartmentalise that pain. I still train hard. I do the best I can physically, but there's a lot of pain, and I've learned that what you can do is you can just take that pain, and you can just compartmentalise, put that pain somewhere. Yeah, I know it's there. Just go and sit over there.
I'm getting on with my life. I think that's really important. That is a phenomenal skill. That's like Mindfulness 3. 0, where you're aware of stuff, but you're also putting them in different boxes in your mind,
I always say to people, the audience doesn't have a rundown. The audience gets what it gets. And if you do a compelling, smooth job of selling that, then nobody knows anymore.
and that's, I think, really where you stay on top of things. Wonderful So John, as you're building this, as you look at the future, what excites you the most is. being on the verge of something new. I love the idea of reinvention.
It just means progression. People talk to me, I'm a big music fan, and people talk about bands and, oh, well, that band was never the same. Radiohead were never the same after they did that. Well, they just,
it's quite a few years ago, a couple of Wow. How many different experiences there were.
But underneath, it is now. And I think people, when you were younger, were thinking of performers. as a I, I'm really excited that I've then they sort of a see it as a career,
I've gone through a sort of TV multi-sports in Asia. I've gone through a Premier League career. I've gone through a sort of a broadcast mentor sort of thing, but now I'm on the verge of another thing.
So yeah, it might be my fifth different career. And I love that because there's a sense of excitement about it. There's a sense of building something. And I think like all of us, we're blessed that we live in Singapore. It's a place where I feel younger. I'll be 60 this year, but I still do the same workouts.
with the 30 year olds in the gym. I still go to rock concerts with my wife and stand down in the front and get smashed by heavy metal fans. if you just get on with life, you don't really worry about the numbers attached to it. The leg aches a bit and the hair's a bit grayer than it once was, but, ultimately this is now the start of another cycle.
And I'm really excited to see where it goes.
Sharad: Wonderful. I'm so excited for you, John. As we wrap up, if there's one bottom line advice you'd like to give folks who are looking at reinventing, Don't see it as a failure. You're not reinventing because you've failed at something. Don't see it as a handbrake turn, complete 360 or whatever, it may be. No, see it as the next logical progression of you delivering what you're about in a way that will bring benefits to you.
tap into what you were, learn from people, have an understanding of what you need to know. and how you're going to plan that journey, but never overlook the fact that at the heart of it, it's you. and you are what you're selling. What wise words, John. Thank you for sharing that. Before we go, I'd love for you to share, where can people find you?
How can you help organisations? If you can just share a little bit about your program, so if people want to find you, they can do that.
John: All right. Thanks very much. I've just re launched a bunch of my social platforms. I have a website, which is john dykes. co and that website basically sits at the heart of what I do.
I've got a lot of marketing collateral that lays out all the different areas I work in. I use LinkedIn a lot.
The things that I'm offering to clients right now are these five major services. Keynote speaking. Which is the kind of bonanza cup final corporate training, which works across a number of the things we discussed here, media training,
which can be both for athletes and also for anyone in the corporate world, how to deal with the media, how to have a consistent successful message about your company, how to deliver your own personal via social branding.speaking and presentation training. This is something that I really love And then the last thing I do is hosting and moderating.
I do all kinds of things as a host and a moderator. And that's an area that I really enjoy getting into
Sharad: I will be putting all the links in the show notes so folks can get in touch with John. John, thank you very much for such an honest conversation. There's so many people out there who are looking at reinventing themselves. I think the advice that you've left them with your experience that you've shared will be extremely useful.
Thank you for doing it at the How to Live podcast. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, Sharad. It was a pleasure.
Sharad: Thank you, John, for such an honest, inspirational conversation. For more on John, please check the show notes. Now here's an action step for all of us. The world is changing. AI is disrupting industries, and it's very important for us to look at ourselves and see whether we need to evolve or not. Most of us approach this with fear and put this away. For me, if there's one big thing that comes out of John's story is that this is possible for all of us. If the time has come to change our identity, maybe we follow some of the steps that John did. First, what is our brand? Does it lend to something else? What are the transferable skills that we have?
How can we leverage it in another industry, in another field? John needed to build commercialization. What are the skills we need to build? Most importantly, how can we get our mindset into the right space? So our intellectual and creative abilities are available to us to make this shift. Best of luck as you look at evolving to the next stage of your career. I hope you enjoyed this episode. The next episode will drop two weeks from now on September 24th. Do join us for that. Till next time, have a wonderful day ahead. Bye bye.
With a natural gift for storytelling, John began helping corporate leaders, from investment bankers to senior executives, communicate powerfully, make strategic decisions, and even recruit with insights from football's greatest. Yet, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. He had to learn the ropes of commercialising his services, setting the right pricing, and designing programs from scratch.
What struck me most about John's journey wasn’t just his skillset—it was his mindset. Despite being at the peak of his career and a familiar face to millions, John approached this transition with humility, curiosity, and quiet determination. He was open to learning, adapting, and evolving.
Many of us are at a point where reinvention is necessary but scary. John’s story shows that reinvention is not only possible—it can be inspiring, even at the top of your game.
If you're looking to evolve and grow to the next stage of your career, this episode is for you.
Episode Shownotes
https://howtolive.life/episode/076-re-inventing-from-broadcast-to-boardrooms
Related Episode
#030 Re-inventing yourself with Sarah Lal
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Sharad Lal: Hi everyone, welcome to How to Live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host, Sharad Lal. This is episode 76. I am very excited to share this great news with you. I've recently sold my agency, 24 Inc to award winning video content company, Casual Films.
It's a huge milestone for me, and it means I can fully focus on growing the how to live company.
beyond the podcast, we're on a mission to help people live more purposeful lives. In the months ahead, I can't wait to share all the exciting stuff that's going to come up. As I embark on this new chapter, today's episode couldn't be more fitting. We dive into the art of reinventing with someone many of us have grown up watching on television, the legendary sports presenter, John Dykes.
John has had an illustrious career in sports journalism. working with some of the greatest names, David Beckham, the Williams sisters, Sir Alex Ferguson, and more. He's here to share stories from his time in sports and the valuable lessons he's learned along the way.
But that's not all. John is now making a bold transition into the corporate world, focusing on leadership and training. He's leveraging his deep knowledge from the world of sports to help become more engaged and effective. In today's conversation, we'll explore how he's navigated the shift, the doubts he's faced, the skills he's drawn upon, and most importantly, the mindset that's driven his success.
There's so much we can learn from his journey. Especially if you're considering your own evolution in work and life. But before we dive in, thank you very much for your support. We're in the top 3 percent of all podcasts globally and listened to in over 140 countries. If you haven't already, please follow us. Now, without further ado, here's the incredible John Dykes.
Sharad: Hi, John. Good morning. Great to see you here in Singapore. How are you doing this morning?
John: I'm very well, Sharad. Thank you very much. It's always a good morning in Singapore. It is. It is.
Sharad: Thank you very much for making time for our podcast. And there's so much to talk about. Everyone in the sports world knows you. They've seen your face. It's that friendly, familiar face. Now you're moving to the corporate world. Is there a memorable story from the sports world that comes to mind that we can start with?
John: Well, yeah, sure.
One story I would tell that I think informed a lot of what I did involved Serena Williams. I was over in Hong Kong, I interviewed Steffi Graf, Anna Kornikova, the big names, and then the Williams sisters who were just starting out
Kornikova and Steffi Graf, they were great, but they were just media trained. they gave you nothing. they've done a million interviews and they would do a million more. Whereas the Williams sisters were new to it, they had this freshness about them, almost a naivety, and they were so enthusiastic.
Now, their manager at the time was a guy who spoke some Mandarin. He was an American, but he'd spent some time in Beijing. So, he'd been training them in some Mandarin, and they were practising. And I said, well, actually, you need some Cantonese here.
Serena's back there. Basically asking me about Cantonese. And then we did this great interview in which she offered a lot. She gave some really positive answers and halfway through she threw a word in. It was quite a long word. And she looked at me, she said, was that the right word?
She said, I try to learn a new word every day. And I try to throw it into an interview or use it, in a practical context if I can. What I took from that, Sharad, was that she had trusted me.
She knew what her role in the interview was. She knew what I needed. She was trying to empower me via giving me something fresh and original. She respected the process and she also understood the learning mentality, growth, ability to say, look, I'm here to learn.
I'm not just here to be arrogant and tell you that I'm the next best thing in tennis. And this is someone who went on to win 23 Grand Slam titles. that stayed with me, and I'd like to think that informed a lot of what I did. What a wonderful story, John. Thank you very much for painting the pre social media picture, where you suddenly find yourself with people who open up because there's no danger of them being caught out. back in those days, As a reporter, journalist, even presenter, you were told it's not about you.
You're just somebody who's privileged to be interviewing them, it was even frowned upon to stand next to Serena Williams or whoever you're interviewing and ask for a, It wasn't a selfie back then.
Nowadays. Very often it's full of influencers who don't really want to ask a question about the match or anything. They just have to get that selfie with the star
So it's, it's really flipped, it is about you. It's like, how do you build your personal brand? Even though you're trying to get to know a sports person better, it's a lot about how do you build your own brand?
And that in some way takes away from the purity of what this interaction is supposed to be about. That's absolutely right. you hit on a really good point there. Something that comes back to me on a regular basis. Now we have personal branding experts, we're encouraged to build our brand, to promote our brand.
I found that my brand evolved organically what I mean by that is, when I was working on ESPN, I didn't say my name anywhere in the show, because I knew there would be a little graphic caption that would come up a lower third, as we called it, saying my name, and I knew that I would be promoted across the channel.
I never felt the need. We used to do a show called Football Focus, which was a very popular chat show, precursor to podcasts, I think, in many ways.
Many would have seen that, I've seen that show, I know many people listening would have seen that show.
yeah. I would walk into a coffee shop in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, somewhere around Asia, where People wouldn't always be watching English as their first language. And I'd walk in and a bunch of young people would point at me and go, ESPN. Or Football Focus.
They wouldn't say John Dykes. And I used to think, wow, that's the power of that brand. so what happened was I developed a brand almost in association with that. It was only because of that people started saying to me, you do have a brand, whether it's impartial interviewing or whether it's credibility or authenticity or association with the biggest leagues.
It was only then, 10, 15, maybe 20 years into my career that I started actually thinking, okay, what is this brand of mine? What do I do with it? how did that thought process, let's go into that. Once you start thinking that, I do have a brand and let me be a little more conscious on how I develop it.
What did you think about it and how did you go about it? I'm going to tell you one more anecdote
Those who follow cricket will have heard of the late Richie Beno. he was the doyen of cricket commentators, mainly because he had this very minimalist, sparse style where he would never just babble on. He would let the pictures talk but his words would always be entirely appropriate.
They would just encapsulate a moment. So he was famous for that. My producer did me the great honour of introducing me to the great man, Richie Benaud. he was very flatteringly aware of it.
Who I was, that I was starting out in broadcasting with ESPN and what I'd done so far. And he gave me a piece of advice, He said, the secret to great commentary
is answering a question just as it's beginning to form in the viewer's mind. Now think that one through a little bit. What that's doing is this is really saying if a viewer or a listener is watching or listening to something that's unfolding.
This commentary team is going to trust in the knowledge, the experience, the insights that they have. And they're going to
make this a collaborative affair. Because the viewer or listener is subconsciously beginning to process what's happening.
But if you just pop in there and effectively go, as you'll have noticed, we're seeing a lot of the balls being delivered on this side, you're involving and empowering the audience. It's this organic collective experience whereby you go on a journey together. And I love that. So bringing it back to the brand, I would have said that was my brand in essence as a broadcaster, as a person, somebody that tried to Relate to, respect, empower the audience and take them on a journey and have this wonderful, fun experience where we shared all these great things in sport.
You talked about Richie Benaud, what you learned from him, that lesson of there's an audience, it's collaborating, you're not standing out on your own and everyone's in the same plane going through that journey.
I love that. I feel as you're moving to speaking on stage, as you're moving to the corporate world, that becomes a youth skill as you help people feel part of it. It's not that you are presenting. I also feel what you talked about in terms of Serena Williams earlier and others, putting people at ease.
So there's trust. there's a conversation that's co created. People are speaking openly. I think that's all related. And that's a huge skill. Having seen you present, having known you a little bit now, I think that's a huge skill you bring in where you're taking people with you, there's trust, and you're moving forward.
How do you see this coming into play as you're now moving into the business world?
John: I wasn't in any way surprised that my ability to story tell and to speak pitch and present would be useful in the corporate world, because as we all know, that's a fundamental part of what everybody does.
I wasn't in any way surprised that relationship building and developing networks and contacts was going to be important,
So these are two things that I think turned around very quickly. The reason I thought to myself, I can offer something here, was when I found myself In nominally, what was a broadcast relationship with a client, which over the course of the build up to the project, switched far more into me being brought into boardrooms to actually sit at a strategic level.
It was also a project which came with no small amount of danger and risk attached to it, which meant that there was a lot of stress around. But what I discovered is that one of the key skills you have as a live broadcaster is the ability to handle crises. effectively with sport, the beauty of it is that anything can happen. Things do go wrong.
Technology can break down. People can make mistakes. you learn to think on your feet, to stay calm, to communicate, and to have pathways and patterns in place that mitigate against a complete meltdown. the ability to make decisions on the fly and to compartmentalise, to problem solve whilst you're addressing something.
I found in the course of this project that these were skills that people were very dependent on me for. So that as much as anything made me think,I should get out and do this more. Wonderful.
I just want to make a quick point on this, which is so good that you looked at yourselves in terms of skill, this of course, storytelling relationships, but it's crisis management.
Which is not an ideal term. It's not an ideal term, but as I know what we mean, with it. as
I see companies across, they're being disruptive there, there's a crisis that all kinds of things are happening. along with the other skills of storytelling so you can communicate well.
Relationships are huge. and that's like a transferable skill that comes in. And remember, they're all bundled together.
communication lies at the heart of this crisis management. The stakeholder buy- ins and relationships are also part of that.
So it's all bundled together.
Very excited to go into that. But I think before we jump in, You're doing so well in sports broadcasting. Why the corporate world? Why this shift? How did that come about?
John: Okay, that's a really good question.
I'm British by birth. But by 17, I left. I went to Hong Kong because my family was there.
I then found my way, thanks to some wonderful people who helped me along. the South China Morning Post newspaper, where I was lucky to rise through the ranks from being a junior sort of trainee to a sports reporter to a feature writer to editor to all sorts of things. Then I got into TV. with Star Sports in Hong Kong, which then became ESPN Star, but that required a move to Singapore in 97 when they made a joint venture. I'd been to Singapore, I loved it,
I made my home in Singapore for years. With the rise of ESPN Star, we bought the Premier League. When I started there, I covered football, European and Asian. I covered rugby, cricket, Formula One, super bikes, MotoGP, and golf. I was there for Tiger Woods, Calendar Slam in Augusta, tennis.
I did Wimbledon a couple of times with Vijay Amitraj, US Open. I covered All kinds of everything. The Premier League was the game changer, because suddenly I was rolling out this coverage to an Asia wide audience initially of the world's biggest football franchise, and it wasn't unnoticed in London, and then the guys at the Premier League came up with the concept of rolling out a global football franchise. service, which was a smart play.
you could just buy it because it came with a ready made channel. they said to me, come over to England.
I went over there and it was great. to roll out this never done before, global content service to work from London I was there on the ground. I had seven years, they renewed my contract a couple times, but halfway through, I started doing the training with my other clients around the world. Halfway through my time in England, I began to realise that, in any presenting role, you've got a sell by date.
Because, there's always going to come a time when somebody might want to freshen it up. my face was all over the screen for years and years. So I began thinking to myself, maybe I should try and do some more work in the UK. And I just couldn't crack the market.
they'd say,you're 50 years old already, or close to 50. You haven't ever worked here. The audience doesn't know you. In the end I saw opportunities again back in Asia. I And thankfully, a couple of people at Fox Sports who were based out of Singapore at time said, come back to Singapore.
So I came back and they gave me my own show three times a week. This was more along the lines of a chat show. This timeIt was the John Dyke show.
So my brand was out there.
So I came back now. knowing that in this part of the world, Southeast Asia, not necessarily in India, where you see a tremendously vibrant broadcasting situation, sports broadcasting has been under threat for a while.
I had to make a decision. My life decision was that I love Singapore. I became a Singaporean. My wife's Singaporean.
My daughters, who are grown up now, are both Singaporean. This is home. and it's lovely to know that this is where I will be. But, this is not anymore. the hub of regional sports broadcasting that doesn't exist.
Now I'm blessed that people still hire me to commentate.
I do various bits and pieces for different, Asian football broadcasters. so there's work, but what's been really exciting is saying to myself, let's find something that goes beyond that. And I now have a website and I now have a marketing collateral that advertises my services as not just a presenter and a host or moderator, but also as a keynote speaker, a corporate trainer, a media trainer.
This is really huge in that I am now going out there and saying, look, this is officially what I am. It's not, Oh, he might be able to come and do that. He's the TV guy. No, no, this is something I've been doing for a while. And this is something that we're actually going to build now, because I really firmly believe that all the things I told you earlier on have led me to this position whereby all of those learnings, insights, connections, I think, have a relevance.
And I just think there's a market for it. Certainly it is.
Sharad: Thanks for sharing that story. And John,
This is so relevant to people across industries, two of the things that he said, I know I have a sell by date, which people realise as well in different careers. And second, the industry is shifting and changing and my relevance there isn't a lot now from that point, you went and shifted, what else is out there?
What should I do? How was that process? Like, how long did it take? Were you depressed for a year and said, this is unfair, we are celebrity people. How was that process, and how did it shift to let me look at possibilities from here?
John: Yeah, I think you have to be honest about it. You have to accept that when the primary source of income starts to cut down, you look elsewhere. What I did was I ran round and round in circles a year or so when the Fox channel shut down.
They actually offered me a show for nine to a year. My own John Dyke show shifted onto Disney Plus, it was really bad. obviously that wasn't going to be what I was doing anymore.
What I realised was that even though it seemed that I was doing a very disparate bunch of roles, all of them came back to this business of me training or mentoring. A company in Indonesia bought the rights to the Premier League and as well as their Bahasa language free to air, they wanted to put out a premium English service as well.
And the bosses came to me and said, we need some help in how to do this. We've got something really cool. team of production staff. So I went in there and it wasn't just a question of presenting. I literally went in there and said, look, this is how you're going to structure your show.
These are the guests that I would suggest you use. This is the budget that you probably will need for this. I trained their staff in how to put out wall to wall matches on a Saturday and Sunday. And I loved it.
It is a fascinating project because yes, I did end up popping up in front of the camera and hosting the Premier League again. But the really stimulating part of it was developing this team,
I was so proud to leave them and say to the guys who'd hired me, you now have the best sports production team in Indonesia.
So that excited me, and in various ways I've done similar bits and pieces of work to that. But what was also interesting was a couple of people came to me and said,
we want you to come in almost as a mentor when you commentate. We've got some young talent And we'd like you to come in and just try and work with them.
And so that's something I've really found interesting. And the people have turned to me and said, we see you now as this kind of advisory figure. So again, it all plays, Sharad, I think back into the same thing. So whilst all this was going on, it was exciting, but it was also very erratic, all of us. need a bit of security. So I thought the one way to take charge of this situation is to actually build my own offering. So that people will still come to me and I will go off and work on projects, but I want to have a tick over and I want to have something that is there for people to see, particularly the corporates, right?
This guy. Can come and over five or 10 sessions can talk to our leadership or,people will book me for keynotes or more hosting and moderating because the other message I had to get out there was, it's not just sport. American express came to me and said, look, we've got this leadership academy.
Could you come in and say, it's not a sport. So I sat and moderated a panel there, Milken Institute got me in for their Asia Summit last year and I sat and did something with
two ice dancers, the Shibutani siblings, who are actually now pushing out into their lives post skating and they're now photographers and artists and filmmakers. Yeah, fascinating. This gives me a foundation, Shahrod, I think, and I'd welcome your take on it, because I think this is what I'm looking to do, to have this solid underpinning.
Wonderful. I'll just pin back the lesson as I took it, and this could be applicable to so many people who are reinventing themselves. You had a certain understanding of your brand, your appeal, your skills, and then other people saw a broader version of it. So the Indonesia Channel said, John's done this for years.
He can help us set this up. You did that and you enjoyed it and you like there's something beyond my brand training that I can do. Folks then started getting into the corporate world and then you realise I can actually do stuff in leadership because it's related to what I do. People are seeing me like this and I'm enjoying it.
Let me define myself as someone who can do these things so that there are many others out there. Who can see me like that? Did that process work like that? And how are you now defining yourself in this whole corporate leadership space?
What I very quickly realised is that it wasn't enough to say, Communication, crisis management relationship building, networking. These are all things you can use. In the corporate environment what I needed to do was work from the other end. One thing I learned about the corporate world is that it's incredibly pragmatic in a way that funnily enough, sport and broadcast wasn't in my experience.
I found very often that we were making great content, but we weren't always aware whether that was actually making money.
Or whether it was a viable business. And I think that's true today. That's interesting to me.
So what I did, Sharad, was I worked it from the other end. I started saying to people, alright, let's go with a completely blank slate. You tell me what learning outcomes, what tangible results as an L& D department, or whatever you may want?
What's the bottom line? And then I'll work back towards that by going. If you tell me that we need our team to be more like this,Then what I'll do is I'll go back and find that I've seen, done and experienced that I can relate to that.
And this was the most important revelation. This has only come for me in the last few months. I spent two years plus running around doing all these various projects, occasionally, going and saying, I'm here to talk about leadership. Someone also said to me, what you don't want is you don't want to stand on stage, deliver a sensational keynote and have a bunch of people come up to you and say, I loved that.
Sharad: Brilliant. All right, What you want is what you want someone to say,that was just the first of a series that you're going to give us. you obviously have the learnings that we need. So those two things are really informing what I've been doing now. Understanding what is needed and then finding something that delivers that.
And crucially developing a repeatable progressive going back to my thing about this being a journey that we go on an organic learning process product that people will want to keep coming back to. That's wonderful, John.
what you're saying is, yes, I can talk about sports, but that's one part. Let me see what they need. What do they need in the organisation? That's a different entity. There's profit, there's engagement, there's a hundred things. What is the problem and how do I connect sports so we can create something that could be useful?
That's one. And then, of course, we do it on a sustained basis as a journey. Yeah. Is there any example of an area you found in the leadership space that was useful and how did you link it back to I think when I look at the leadership lessons that I've learned, they break down into the key learnings that I would say are fundamental to everything I do.
John: Communication, but more than communication, I do something where I talk about Jose Mourinho. And Jose Mourinho has this incredible, very clear cut identity, and he's always reminding you of it. He holds his hand up with a certain number of fingers to tell you how many times he's won a certain competition.
His entire message is, I'm about winning, and if you hire me and if you work with me, we will go on a journey together where we will win. I think that's a really important one because people talk about communication and messaging within their team. But the thing about the Mourinho lesson is that he was entirely consistent and repeatable as well.
I do something now where I talk about all the different strands that go together to make a successful team.
Or a successful product. I talk about the fact that you have to engage with all the stakeholders. That you have to have a very common purpose. You have to have Very clear cut message and communication. Your recruitment has to be right.
Now this is where I would bring in Sir Alex Ferguson, for example.
Recruitment and reinvention. Two Manchester managers, Ferguson and Guardiola, are past masters of this. Ferguson's was, the minute you win something, you're already planning to win it next time. And that might involve making harsh decisions, getting rid of the likes of David Beckham or Roy Keane. You're constantly refreshing your team.
You're working with a purpose and a focus in mind. You're looking at your resources and how they can best achieve your goals. Pep Guardiola, for example, is constantly reinventing the way football is played, reinventing the roles of his employees, his players. All of these things I find at leadership level resonate.
Sharad: 100%. I remember talking to you, maybe it was just two months back, and you were talking about Alex Ferguson, all these guys.
you've developed it so well now. And there's also form to it. How is that work that you have these ideas, but putting a to it, creating a program, relating it, then maybe brochures and How's that entire process work?
John: Well, this has been a really important couple of months.You're right. And what I've realised is that in all of this, You can't do it on your own particularly when you're taking a step into an area that's new to you. You have to find mentors. You have to find organisations, networks, any resources you can find that will just ease you along.
You, for example, Sharad, you're a tremendous source of guidance and counsel. The fact that we're sitting here doing here, we're working through a progression and a story, but I found a branding person to just fine tune what it is that I'm about.
Very often people go into speaking or coaching. Just a corporate background or some kind of professional background. I come to it having done it all my life. I've always been a storyteller. I've always been a speaker. I'm comfortable on screen on stage. So in a way, that's not what I need to learn.
It doesn't mean that I don't recognize there are things I do need to learn because being a keynote speaker or a trainer comes with a different skill set.What I'm fascinated by is monetizing things, structuring things, selling things.
And you've noticed that in the space of two months, I'm doing that. So what I've been trying to do is look at learning outcomes and work my way back towards how I tell the stories that lead to them.
Now, I'm sitting and I'm building a team. I'm looking at how I tell stories and the best way they'll resonate. I'm also at the same time building business tools. What do I do when I start getting orders?
How am I going to handle this? What's my pricing strategy going to be like? How do I learn this? Where do I go and practice? I started, I trained, I've been training one of the things we haven't spoken about which is a bit of a no brainer for me is I've been doing some speaking skills training.
I was working recently with somebody who's an investment analyst. and this guy was fascinating because he said to me, look, I talked to clients, I talked to my own colleagues and I'm recommending funds and fund managers and markets.
I spent all my time pitching and presenting, but he said, I think I could be better at it.
So I said, show me what you do.And the beauty of it is that I may not know the complexities of the Indian equity market. But when someone's trying to tell somebody that they should be investing in it, or they should be a little bit wary of this,I pretty much knew that I could upgrade his ability to pitch and sell and tell stories hugely.
And over a series of sessions we put together, the transformation has been remarkable.
Because I'm saying, okay, how do I apply what I've got to this context? And I'm willing to bet that this guy's results are going to really improve. Fascinating, John, as now I'm taking the lessons out, even for people in other industries where you've got transferable skills that work so well because of which you're able to help people, whatever field they are in storytelling.
But there's another bunch of skills which you've never experienced, which you need to build the commercialization skills. Yeah. And earlier you never needed to do it, but now you understand that's important. All of this is good, but I need to commercialise what I'm doing. So what is the pricing? How do I sell it?
How do I make these programs? How do I make it repeatable? That's another skill you're getting into. So as people reinvent themselves, there'll be new learnings that they need to get into. Which becomes important. Yeah. you've got to know that it's not a total restart.
You come to whatever it is that you're deciding to do now, partly because of what you've been. you mustn't ignore the skills that you do have and the character that you have, because what's the point in that? Are you going to write off 10 or five or 20 years of your life?
I don't think so. But what you do have to do is you have to have a very, almost brutally clear sense of your shortcomings and knowledge gaps. How do you do that? If, if you don't mind me, you've achieved success, but now you're going to another area.
How do you get that brutal assessment? You, you talk to people, Sharad. And, in my case, like I said, I spoke to a couple of people and said, Hey, it's me. I'm this famous guy and I've got these great stories to tell. a couple of people said, we're not into sports.
So my challenge now is to still use the sport, but effectively, just using it as case studies and lessons. get into what's valuable.
I've got a close friend who said to me, you're now in a position, John, where you're not just a respected sporting authority, but you're also a trainer. what was interesting was he did it, you're talking about brutal. He did it in a way that he basically said, you're far more just an entertaining after dinner speech. You're far more than just a couple of great anecdotes and a couple of slides on stage.
You're more than that.you got more to offer. And in a way he was sort of grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me and going, come on. if you're going to go this way, you've got to go all the way. And you've got to actually bring positive, constructive, viable, profitable earnings for people from this.
And that was so good. And that's what I've liked about this, because I'm going out and I'm saying to people, hey, I'm doing this. And by and large, they're like, oh, cool, great. But
one or two people have gone, yeah, so what? What are you actually going to do?
And what we all need. Someone to, not brutally. But just candid. positive assessment of what you still need to do.
Sharad: John, that's so well put. We of course need people who give you the truth, but you also need cheerleaders like the person who told you're more than who you think you are.
And he wants you to believe that. How did that process go to believe that you actually belong? You're more than that. You're able to make a difference in these leadership. How's that process going?
John: That one is it's an ongoing process
It's going to be prone to impostor syndrome, self doubt, but then again, I've worked in that career my whole life, Sharad.
You won't find a more neurotic bunch of people than TV presenters and those who work in that public eye. It happens. part of you says, why am I on this screen? What am I doing here? Do I really look like that?
I've had to deal with occasional bouts of self questioning and doubt throughout my career, and you learn how to deal with that. What you do is you tell yourself, that you've done this before, you tell yourself that people are hiring you to do this, that people trust you and respect what you do.
You tell yourself that there's a process that you go through to make this good. and you remind yourself that you have something to offer and it's going to benefit people.
The pitch is far harder than the delivery, you're very nervous about it, is it going to work?
Have we got the right stories here? Is the guest going to be the right guest? But then suddenly you're on there, the red light comes on the camera, you're live, and you just deliver.
One of the greatest enemies you can have is inertia. Because with inertia comes doubt and fear and negativity. So you have to keep putting a foot in front of another. You have to keep getting on that stage or getting back on the computer and emailing someone saying, Would you like this draft?
Have I got the messaging right this time? And that's important. Wonderful point. John, one of the things that struck me in all the
I've had with you, even while at this stage of reinventing yourself, you're living in Singapore, there's some financial pressure, there's stress whether it's going to work out or not.
You seem to have a phenomenal attitude. There's humility, there's enthusiasm, curiosity,
Determination, quiet determination. How have you worked on the mindset? Are you naturally gifted with a mindset like this? no. I wish I could say that. to all those things that you said, there are also sleepless nights. There are also mortgages to be paid, kids to be put through college, and there are also horrible moments of self doubt and fear and questioning,
whether you've made the right move and how it is that your life has come to this point.
That comes back to my ability to compartmentalise and to manage. I have an ability to compartmentalise the way my brain works. I could be sitting here talking to you as I am right now, but another little compartment in my box could very easily be listening to a conversation going on. The producer realised quite early, and a lot of my producers realised that they can actually talk to me whilst I'm talking.
The reason I'm using this is I use this technique when things overwhelm me, I'm confronted by financial stress or something's fallen apart and things aren't good. But I somehow managed to just get to that little place in my head and an overview and look down on it and go, look, okay, this is happening and this is bad.
So that's how I do it. I try to compartmentalise. It's a bit like when you have pain. I suffer a lot of, I have, I've had a knee that's been rebuilt a couple of times, and one day it will be replaced, and
I've had a lot of work done.
It hurts all the time, and I compartmentalise that pain. I still train hard. I do the best I can physically, but there's a lot of pain, and I've learned that what you can do is you can just take that pain, and you can just compartmentalise, put that pain somewhere. Yeah, I know it's there. Just go and sit over there.
I'm getting on with my life. I think that's really important. That is a phenomenal skill. That's like Mindfulness 3. 0, where you're aware of stuff, but you're also putting them in different boxes in your mind,
I always say to people, the audience doesn't have a rundown. The audience gets what it gets. And if you do a compelling, smooth job of selling that, then nobody knows anymore.
and that's, I think, really where you stay on top of things. Wonderful So John, as you're building this, as you look at the future, what excites you the most is. being on the verge of something new. I love the idea of reinvention.
It just means progression. People talk to me, I'm a big music fan, and people talk about bands and, oh, well, that band was never the same. Radiohead were never the same after they did that. Well, they just,
it's quite a few years ago, a couple of Wow. How many different experiences there were.
But underneath, it is now. And I think people, when you were younger, were thinking of performers. as a I, I'm really excited that I've then they sort of a see it as a career,
I've gone through a sort of TV multi-sports in Asia. I've gone through a Premier League career. I've gone through a sort of a broadcast mentor sort of thing, but now I'm on the verge of another thing.
So yeah, it might be my fifth different career. And I love that because there's a sense of excitement about it. There's a sense of building something. And I think like all of us, we're blessed that we live in Singapore. It's a place where I feel younger. I'll be 60 this year, but I still do the same workouts.
with the 30 year olds in the gym. I still go to rock concerts with my wife and stand down in the front and get smashed by heavy metal fans. if you just get on with life, you don't really worry about the numbers attached to it. The leg aches a bit and the hair's a bit grayer than it once was, but, ultimately this is now the start of another cycle.
And I'm really excited to see where it goes.
Sharad: Wonderful. I'm so excited for you, John. As we wrap up, if there's one bottom line advice you'd like to give folks who are looking at reinventing, Don't see it as a failure. You're not reinventing because you've failed at something. Don't see it as a handbrake turn, complete 360 or whatever, it may be. No, see it as the next logical progression of you delivering what you're about in a way that will bring benefits to you.
tap into what you were, learn from people, have an understanding of what you need to know. and how you're going to plan that journey, but never overlook the fact that at the heart of it, it's you. and you are what you're selling. What wise words, John. Thank you for sharing that. Before we go, I'd love for you to share, where can people find you?
How can you help organisations? If you can just share a little bit about your program, so if people want to find you, they can do that.
John: All right. Thanks very much. I've just re launched a bunch of my social platforms. I have a website, which is john dykes. co and that website basically sits at the heart of what I do.
I've got a lot of marketing collateral that lays out all the different areas I work in. I use LinkedIn a lot.
The things that I'm offering to clients right now are these five major services. Keynote speaking. Which is the kind of bonanza cup final corporate training, which works across a number of the things we discussed here, media training,
which can be both for athletes and also for anyone in the corporate world, how to deal with the media, how to have a consistent successful message about your company, how to deliver your own personal via social branding.speaking and presentation training. This is something that I really love And then the last thing I do is hosting and moderating.
I do all kinds of things as a host and a moderator. And that's an area that I really enjoy getting into
Sharad: I will be putting all the links in the show notes so folks can get in touch with John. John, thank you very much for such an honest conversation. There's so many people out there who are looking at reinventing themselves. I think the advice that you've left them with your experience that you've shared will be extremely useful.
Thank you for doing it at the How to Live podcast. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, Sharad. It was a pleasure.
Sharad: Thank you, John, for such an honest, inspirational conversation. For more on John, please check the show notes. Now here's an action step for all of us. The world is changing. AI is disrupting industries, and it's very important for us to look at ourselves and see whether we need to evolve or not. Most of us approach this with fear and put this away. For me, if there's one big thing that comes out of John's story is that this is possible for all of us. If the time has come to change our identity, maybe we follow some of the steps that John did. First, what is our brand? Does it lend to something else? What are the transferable skills that we have?
How can we leverage it in another industry, in another field? John needed to build commercialization. What are the skills we need to build? Most importantly, how can we get our mindset into the right space? So our intellectual and creative abilities are available to us to make this shift. Best of luck as you look at evolving to the next stage of your career. I hope you enjoyed this episode. The next episode will drop two weeks from now on September 24th. Do join us for that. Till next time, have a wonderful day ahead. Bye bye.