Episode 08 · 33:27
Building A Legacy With No Reward: Welsh Football Legends
The proposed shift from Wales to Cymru opens a conversation about language, football and people who build a legacy without receiving the eventual reward. Dan and Tom consider the players, supporters and cultural workers who create conditions that a later generation inherits.
Legacy, in this telling, is work whose value may only become visible after the person doing it has left the pitch.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Names and language choices signal whose identity a public institution centres.
- A cultural change is usually built on years of less visible work.
- Legacy asks you to value outcomes you may not personally get to enjoy.
- Tell the stories of the people who prepared the ground, not only those present for the breakthrough.
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The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
Yeah I think we need to find an easier way of doing this podcast but we'll talk about that offline back to our Football chat about how it's interesting how whales want to change or the Welsh fa wants to change its name to Country um and we're basically saying how it's interesting I sort of half mind-blanked on what we're finding interesting I just committed to it I like it when this is a tactic right you say no not sure and basically you.
Say not sure in a buffer to be like but I actually think that this is this like you'll say some buffer word or buffer phrase to get it going yeah so whales are going to change to be known internationally as Camry now turkey have done the same they've um as well no no yeah we're fighting for the word Camry now the vote to whichever country actually wins the word they've um done it so they're now pronounced in the in the Turkish way to write Turkey.
Um is their standard Global name um which is beneficial it makes sense because again if you Google turkey in the English spelling it comes up with turkeys right like the meat the the bird kind of thing and in the same way for us I don't think when you Google Wales it does come up with actual mammals right the whales it does come up with the country whales but I think switching it to Camry would be even better I'm not so bothered about it.
Because I'm kind of like oh it's just the English and the Welsh but I understand that the Welsh sorry the English definition of Wales is basically like foreigners right so in us being able to use Camry is a better more um kind of like our own onus of that name but yeah tell me about the the so you've been watching the Welsh podcast no you've been watching the Welsh documentary about the Welsh Football Club uh the wash team the Welsh team yeah.
About talking about how John toshack for basically was saying Harry wanted to take the Welsh football team to a a tournament so basically Euros or World Cup or both preferably multiple ones I'm assuming you'd want to take at least one of each if not multiple reoccurring times back when I was a lot younger so probably didn't understand the the tactics or the managerial point of view back then but I remember just every time I watch World's play they either played pretty poor or they.
Lost a lot of games and I think it's interesting because he's the guy that's basically introduced Gareth Bale I think potentially Ramsay definitely Hennessy how did he introduce that so he basically this is me blockchain up all the uh documentary but he's basically taking people that were under 17s and pushing them to the and skipping the under 19s or whatever pushing under 21s and then straight into the senior Squad yeah he was basically pushing them to get their cap way sooner so they could.
Get used to the the statue of wearing the badge for whales being in the different um qualifying stages what the pressure might bring with that so I'm assuming these players might have not even been Premier League regulars maybe bench maybe even Championship I'll ask a guess at that age because they also had a a cap in uh or like a threshold of like 27 year olds yeah so the average age was I think 27 28 and Tucker was like we need.
To get it down to 23. and I think with it's interesting because average age you just assume what everyone's at age well it's no it's you've got the 18s that are pulling down maybe the 32 year olds but overall the stock and then 21 to 25 of the group basically um so when Tasha was playing a lot of people were it sounded like he was changing this even though he's a very traditional manager he was trying to change her system so play with the.
Back three instead of the classic 442 that pretty much every team in the world was probably playing back then so he was trying to do stuff in a very Innovative way and he was even saying to like some of his staff how basically he will be doing decisions and he will be um creating an impact that they won't feel the Accolade something I would the celebration from it someone else will reap the fruits of basically his hard labor so it's interesting seeing like.
The amount of memories that like Gareth Bale or Robson kanu or whatever has done for like I remember where I was watching those gate type of mode like you have a stamp in your memory just for that just because Tosh up was trying to get loads of um youngsters in but also who's asking loads of people of like what their um background was what their link was so he basically got the uh Ashley Williams he found out that he had a link with.
Wales not only with Jamaican but Wales as well so roped him in that then ended up becoming a captain Robson kanu apparently he used to do trips to Wales to pick up his I think it was his nana or or nine or whatever he says grandma or whatever to then go um uh what's it called not camping what's the next one up from that glamping yeah yeah so it was probably Caravan then yeah glamping is still outside like there's.
Just like a fancier tent yeah yeah so you used to do a lot of camping and they were like oh so did your mother move to Wales because obviously that doesn't count he's like no no mother was um grandmother was born in Wales so it's like it was a clever way of how do we blood youngsters to get used to high level pressure but also how do we cast a net to all the people that we might not.
Have come across before um with like mothers grandmothers dogs that are born in Wales or whatever that you can link them to it to then because once you've got that they did amazing good as semi-finals they played against Portugal lost they came back to Wales and they basically did a city tour around Cardiff with swarms of people as if they won the Champions League the league the World Cup whatever but it was just a celebration of wow like this is the new Wales team like.
We never thought that they would be that good this soon on um we I think there's always a hope that they would be that good and I hope that they would be as good as as the rugby team but there was never really that and I think that tournament in France the that Euros is like a lot of the kids now that are playing in the team remembered where they were when they were watching it so it's an.
Interesting sort of legacy of sort of toshak had an idea implemented it loads of people didn't like but then Gary speed took over and then he realized the limitations but instead of looking at the limitations that you can't buy players um on an international level he was saying how do we professionalize the training grounds the staff the travel how do we make it as if they are like playing at the top of their game because if we can create this structure that.
Makes you feel like you're Brazil or Portugal or whatever that you should be playing at that level like it raises up the stakes of right I need to take this more seriously plus it helps you because maybe you're eating healthy or whatever so it's interesting seeing Gary Speed come in with his ideas of going okay there's limitations but how what do I have control over and then how do I push that to the nth degree with obviously his stamp and then Coleman.
Coming in to be like it's really weird because obviously going speed um passed away very early on so Coleman was trying to I think he didn't realize but he was trying to mirror what Gary speed did but Chris Coleman is completely different so I think he had to sort of basically he sat in a dark room when they lost really badly and was like actually I either need to leave because I'm trying to copy him or I need to leave for doing like bad.
Results but I need to at least try to do result how I would do it because that's all I have control over basically and that's when he started to win games and stuff so it is interesting and they I've not fully finished it um it's on SOC and and it's winglish so since it's got Gary um Gareth Bale like speaking English but it's obviously got like the uh scarier people speaking Welsh and it is a mixture depending on some of the places.
Speak English so it is quite interesting seeing the different bits obviously gigs came in and it's at that section so it's not moved over to Rob page and and going through the history I think so that was a really good summary I think two things that come out to me in you sharing that is Coleman thinking that he should emulate somebody um to be successful versus being himself and I love that pivot moment of he realized that he can't be the best Gary.
Speed Gary speed obviously isn't as sadly passed away like Gary speed can be the best Gary speed and Coleman can be the best Coleman so I think in life are you trying to emulate someone it kind of comes back to what we were speaking about before around like your beliefs has somebody said oh like you're as skillful as your sibling your brother or are your cousins like oh you're very similar to your cousin um or you're very similar to your twin.
Right like we have twins in the family so we we know some of the pressures of that as well like the the natural competitive slash comparison and then it makes you basically just not be as good because you're trying to be someone else or you're trying to do something to achieve somebody else's perception of you oh well I always thought you were really good at drumming okay that means I'm gonna have to try harder but actually I love business too you know so.
Then I'll be trying to be this greatest drummer ever when really I like both things and and trying to be somebody else like where you fit into somebody else's life they might be like hey I want a drummer right now so Dan be the best drummer because that's what I want they're not expressing that but that's how they convey their encouragement is to kind of like I encourage you because I want you basically to fit into my jigsaw piece.
And um so sometimes we have to just realize like are we actually being ourselves in our situation or are we trying to be somebody else because the best Tom Ryland is Tom Ryan the best down Ryland is Dan Ryland uh the second point that you were making about um just basically instilling some sort of a process or Legacy of process which in its infancy is basically going to look like a bad decision so you'll have a bunch of people that turn up on a day to.
Be like this was a really poor game and they don't realize that this poor game is the Journey of um trialling something new which is bringing down that average age which is bringing in youngsters getting them to experience International Football sooner so then they can basically adapt quicker rather than waiting a long time for them to be like mature in the in the kind of like the international game and stuff so I think I bet that must have been really.
Annoying um because again you have to just basically take the take for granted right now that 20 of the people that you will ever meet will not like you and that's a well that's a healthy position yeah let's pretend that that's a fact right twenty percent of the people that you'll meet in this world will not like you but is it important to try and squeeze that 20 to be zero or is it the is it better to focus on the fact.
That 80 believe in you so I would say like what stopped um tashak from like changing his mind Chances Are One he really truly believed in what he was doing for himself so his self-confidence in the idea was huge and two he probably surrounded himself with the eighty percent with the 80 of like yeah that's a great idea and of course you can't not encounter the 20 percent but you know that shouldn't um make you pivot and and filter.
Um on the falter sorry on that concept and I think those decisions it reminds me of I I was listening to the um there's a book about the All Blacks how they basically hand over their shirts to the next player in this kind of like Legacy of like I want you to now make this shirt better than I made that shirt and there is so much of that Legacy of handing it over how do you um hand over.
Greatness through generations um another thing that they did that I found interesting was they always wanted to keep players in a stressful like kind of on a stressful Edge so they can think with Clarity because when they're on the field stress happens you need to think with Clarity so what they would do is like right tomorrow you did giving a speech about you know um I don't know some topic that you could give speeches about like tomorrow you're going to give speeches about.
Stretching like they would do a speech about like the best stretches and how to like warm up or whatever and while they're doing that speech we're basically going to throw stuff at you you know like we're not going to tell you that we're going to throw a stuff but we're going to throw stuff at you you know keeping you in that heightened sense of um alert or like stress then is is when when you then come to the moment when it.
Needs to happen AK on the pitch and you're losing and you need to be like come on think with Clarity in a stressful situation you're able to switch into the clarity much better because you've basically trained in uncertainty in stress therefore when the moment comes you deal with it um slightly better than you would if you hadn't prepared um in that way and I think like that that's a really interesting thing are we like challenging ourselves um when I I know this analogy is poor.
Due to the circum like the world circumstances but you basically don't wait for war to happen you kind of like prepare for what happened and if we specifically kind of Target that to mindset right like you don't like wait for stress to happen to be ready you prepare yourself before the stress happens um and I think it is about what can you do now to prepare yourself for those moments and it's not living in fear of those moments it's like just recognizing.
Those things happen you know stress happens and and difficult situations happen so what can you do to prepare yourself so you then um act in a better way when it does hit you when it does happen and I think it's a caveat it with everyone that's listening that might already be in a stressful situation it's like how do you pull the pressure so you can get a little bit more clarity or how do you be with people that are.
Going to walk through that that storm of your life because it might be a season or whatever that then you can go again um because it's one of those things is that you might be preparing or you might be in it or it might be post of what oh I did that wrong and did that poorly or whatever so I think it's just to reiterate that you might be in a stressful situation now and you need resources of how do you enjoy the moment.
And how do you sort of grab the hook pulled by its horns type of mentality because it's so easy to mentally clock out or be overwhelmed binge Netflix go through a season that you sort of basically drifting Downstream to potentially Cliff that then takes you into a deep area rather than going actually I'm really struggling now I need to open up to friends or or colleagues or whatever just to relieve a little bit of pressure um you don't need to full-on open the.
Sort of faucet completely like um I'll be comfortable with the with the topic at the moment but I've not double checked with my wife but anyway so we've had some bad news from from an uncle and and what I told my wife is I was saying let people at school know because you might randomly break down crying or you might randomly not be able to think because right now in your brain your process and information that is um.
Bad sad news that might genuinely affect your day-to-day life because what I learned from my past is when people pass passed away or if I had bad news about something um I would not tell people because I'd be like I don't want them to change how they treat me but actually sometimes by giving people heads up because they're humans and they can't migrained ourselves it's that if you randomly break down it's a something happened they've had sad news you might.
Randomly break down it's not your characteristic it's not the person of who you are it's not you're a weak person or whatever that you're tarnished with it's a very specific this crunch moment right now something might happen I'm just giving you a heads up so you don't randomly have a go at me for being upset or having a go to dropping the ball when you might not necessarily be thinking straight so then they can do bad decisions if it's.
Leadership or or her boss or whatever of managing that situation that you're letting them know what's what's going on obviously you don't need to go super specific of like how much you've been crying or how much you've been processing or how much you like whatever it's just going something bad's happened it might affect my attitude it's basically for someone to have that in their brain that if outside news they might get triggered on a certain topic or in certain situations.
How do I support them in this situation Plus on the flip side if people are shitty the fact that you've told them or treat you differently then it's just highlighting the fact of who before you and who against you so and you've told them before you've told them early so then you can figure out okay so when I am really in a even higher stress situation then that's the person not to have around so I I think yeah I completely.
Agree you basically have to preemptively um make decisions and and do stuff before it's like quote unquote too late of like the stress of the the enormousy or the scale of something hits you by decreasing the pressure everywhere you physically possibly can in an in a hope that if you as you said leak out like you know five percent ten percent you've built back that capacity again um and it's like a kettle boiling over like basically you know just before it.
Boils over if we're talking about an old school cattle right you pull it off the the the um the stove right you you pull it off so it doesn't boil you'd wait for a bit then you put it back on then you pull it off and it's like the imagery of that what does that look like and I completely agree it's about telling people upfront you know some information you'd have to as you said don't have to share.
It all some information to to let them know um before it comes as a random out of a blue Tech out of the blue text that's like hey this is an immediate urgent thing and obviously those things still happen anyway right um so it's like how can you build capacity for for basically hard times and um create an environment of people that can assist you in that hard time because they're aware that you're going through a hard time and not being like.
Why were you late to work today and you'd be like you know well actually I had a really tough time getting the kids ready or so or something something you know like those moments still happen anyway but if you can kind of preempt some of that stuff um I think it's ultimately because we think when we tell people our problems we think that that instantly becomes their problem but it doesn't like it's up to them to do with that information.
What they want so for example they might be like oh I feel really heavy about the fact that you you've told me this news like but that's not up to you like to say I don't want you to fix it but I'm just letting you know so then it it empowers other people to know that they don't need to do anything it's just a more information that if something randomly happens um it just helps them know how to deal with.
That situation let me chime in with this that just triggered my memory to um something called the five listening ears again what we obviously you guys know now that we like psychology and stuff um there are five uh and I'm not a professional so don't take this yeah this is not medical advice I think that should be our t-shirt um caveat caveat caveat um basically there's five listening uh there's five kind of like um things you do when somebody tells you something and.
I don't remember all the five but you can Google it and some of the five is like one one of it could be statement so I'm just saying I'm sad is that a statement this the second one is is it request you know I'm sad like and therefore do you want me to do something you know so it is a case of I can't remember the other three annoyingly is it a question Maybe rhetorical questions but actually they.
Don't need an answer yeah that's what the others are I'll have to I'll have to find what it is but um broadly speaking even just knowing those two of like is it a request for me to do something or is it just a statement and especially when it comes to um any sort of uh relationship uh kind of like a romantic relationship like a husband wife or a boyfriend girlfriend that those two even those two ears are really good to distinguish.
Between yeah yeah let me Google the five listening here so I can be like tell you exactly what it is oh it's it's not it's not gonna be five unless you can tell this is not a planned conversation oh this is coming up with all sorts of different wrong things well anyway two of them are statement and request I think but yeah I I think we'll start it now yeah the two listening ears is it a statement uh or is it a request and I 100 think.
That like if we're able to give that context to remove uncertainty of the person listening so it just delivers a like a a smoother thing and of course we're not always going to be able to do that but if you can let's say Hey FYI like this family situation is going I'm just telling you for context I I don't um need anything right now and if that changes I'll let you know but I just wanted to let you know as context and I.
Appreciate you letting me tell you kind of thing or listening because then it just saves a future potential blowout in an emotional triggered state that you might not be able to fix ever or you might lose a job or you might break off with a part or whatever because you've not told them that there's this dripping thing that's been annoying you for years or whatever by even just saying there's this thing I know it's on my side like responsibility.
It's not my it's not on you but this is what I'm dealing with massively helps people to know okay that I can maybe think how I say something or I think how I might not be so demanding maybe in this short period of time because because people are people at the end of the day yeah I've just Googled the five listening ears psychology and it's like the five levels are listening ignoring pretending so it's not that it's not the five.
Levels it's like as you hear something you will hear it and basically interpret it in these five in one of these five ways so when someone says when someone tells you I am sad Tom will interpret it in one of these five ways he might be like oh Dan's just saying it as a statement whereas I might have um said it in the hope that Tom basically um does something basically yeah yeah it's really interesting and I think all.
Sorts of um I've been thinking more and more about politics and being a public leader um or being like a a country leader or a politician and all this stuff and of course we all have our opinions and the things that we definitely disagree with um more than agree with and it's like if you want to be somebody that can that does change at that level which is like policy changes is one of the best levels to make changes at because it's long.
Lasting unless it's then reverted in the next sentence um like how do you put up with that 20 of people hating you um and and it's quite difficult to do that so what people typically do is like okay I won't go into politics to make changes at that level and we all know the significance of those people because those people can choose to up our taxes or lower our taxes so they have a lot of power um but it's very difficult to become.
Those people and so therefore we decide to run businesses where we can control the ecosystem or well within reason um or we decide to run Charities so we can have that impact um and I find it really difficult to like figure out do like do I want to go down that road do I not want to go down the road do I prefer to be like the on the edge and be able to like facilitate my own impact.
Um through my own means um all because I'm afraid of people hating me I'm afraid of that 20 because that 20 can be pretty intense you know all the way up to death threats right so it's like and I and I I'm not saying of the politicians today but like the kind of person that I would be is like trying to do good right and I know that everybody says that but I hope that I would bring a different thing and I've been watching.
Something on channel four called the alternative prime minister or I want to be a prime minister or something like that and that's really fascinating because these people that want to do good and that are not going to compromise on character and stuff when a stressful situation comes of like they're faking that we're under a cyber security what do we do do we basically put all of our resources into fixing uh finding out who's done the cyber security things so we can stop them or.
Do we do this thing over here and it's always about the compromise and stuff and then it like escalated to be like okay so basically to stop this type we've now figured out where the cyber security is it's in this country over here so do we send the swap team in to uh destroy it or do we basically um do a tomahawk metal and basically the people in the thing like do the missile do the missile kind of thing and what.
Happens is like as soon as they've done their missile like the person of that country is like hey we've just seen that there's missile going in what's going up and you rupture this thing and the the like the escalation of all that stuff um it's just like a different a different Challenge and what hap one one of the mistakes was like they lied to the um to the representative of that country like oh no we're just doing this we're.
Just doing this kind of thing or or whatever in one aspect of it and they were like as soon as you've done that you've lost it it's better to be truthful because ultimately when you create a lie you then have to fulfill uh or keep that going so it'll be like Nth Degree um so they were like I think at one point it was like one of our submarines has gone into French Waters and uh we've lost we've lost um connection with them.
And the reason why they were in French was because they were surveilling a couple of boats or whatever so it's like what do we do do we go in secretly or do we go in publicly and basically they did it like secretly and then the French were like the French were on the phone and then they pick it so it's like this reenactment to these like Average Joe normal people that then have to be like tested to do this thing and I found it.
Really interesting but they would say no we don't compromise right we don't compromise and integrity is really important but then you just lied to say oh you know it just oh we didn't realize you know what ever so it's like under those stressful situations and I'm not saying that we should therefore be more um chill with certain behaviors I'm just saying like actually it's really difficult could I do this like would I struggle to do this and more so like.
Just frame it in me and and whether or not I wanted to to do like public office type stuff yeah it's like brainstorming the process yeah I've also started to think about you know unfortunately war is knocking on like Ukraine's like door for sure like all that atrocities that are happening there as well as like Europe as well as the wars that were happening before Ukraine kicking off and how as a person that doesn't really like War but I appreciate that there needs to be.
Deterrence but it's like it's like a really muddy um muddy like World of stuff um so lots of people go into um defense because one it's where the government spends the most consistent money and two it's more so they go into defense because it's actually a deterrent and they would build stuff as defensive mechanisms rather than attacking mechanisms or like well now that we've got this you basically won't attack us so I find that interesting and I guess the reason why I'm thinking some.
Of this stuff is because yes it's it's always been around and it's always been something that Humanity has had to to deal with and still dealing with but also if Wales became an independent country or Camry as we'd now say if coming became an independent country how would we operate that right the full loop background yeah yeah like okay tomorrow you become the prime minister of comrie what's your defense strategy so again the reason why I'm watching all this.
Politics stuff because I'm just like it's just food for thought and I guess it's just like like challenging me and pushing up my brain a little bit further than than what I've kind of kept it to be because I'm interested in Manchester if that was the case because don't they still have a rule that you can bow and arrow or Welsh person or something run but isn't it like 1am in the morning or something if a Welsh person's walking.
Over Lane you can burn that like kill them with a bow now or something but yeah yeah and this is it you have to think of all the policies that you have so International Trade energy um you know like like everything so one of those is you know crime like infrastructure like one of those is um is you know the international well like basically defense so so what what's your what's your plan what what are you going to do to.
You know make sure that you're not taken advantage of but also not basically taking advantage of others so it's very very interesting and I think just to add as well I think it's very interesting that all of a sudden more people are interested in the impact of War because it's coming closer to home and we've never really thought about that because it's always been over there those people over there and I think um Detachment is the easiest way to get away with a bunch.
Of bad stuff um so I recognize that that's something that I hope people are kind of wrestling with to be like we should have always been against War not just because it's people that look like us now you know and that stuff yeah yeah that's a discussion for another time so yeah what's the what's the summary of what we've just spoken about we've spoken about a ton of stuff but what's the what's the encapsulated what is your emotional and mental deterrent.
Yeah what's your um what's your management um of like high stress situations stress on pain management yeah how do you deal with it yeah is it good one great way to manage stress is Hammer those nails.