Career Clarity with Athletes: A 2ndwind Podcast with Ryan Gonsalves

Send us Fan Mail Neil Mann didn’t have the perfect path into professional football.  He didn’t get the scholarship. He didn’t get picked when it mattered most. And at one point… he was working as an electrician while chasing the same dream everyone else was chasing full-time. But he didn’t stop. In this episode, Ryan sits down with Neil to walk through what it really looks like when your journey i...

Send us Fan Mail Matthew Hodgson spent his entire career knowing he had the ability and never quite trusting it. The moment basketball was gone, so was everything he thought he knew about himself. He made the Boomers. Had a stint with the Dallas Mavericks. Won championships. And still felt like a loser. When the phone stopped ringing, he was sitting on a beach in Hawaii with an 18-month-old daught...

Send us Fan Mail Jack’s career didn’t end on his terms. It ended with a letter. No warning. No backup plan. No income. Just a moment where everything he had built… stopped. In this episode, Ryan sits down with Jack to unpack what it really takes to rebuild your life after sport when you’re forced to start again. From surviving the brutal, cutthroat world of professional umpiring to being released...

Send us Fan Mail Joe thought he knew what life after football would look like. He had the degree.  He had the plan.  He had a clear next step. But the reality felt completely different. In this episode, Ryan sits down with Joe to unpack what really happens when your identity is built around sport… and suddenly, it’s gone. From growing up in a football family to playing professionally for over a de...

Send us Fan Mail Josh Allan thought he had it figured out. He was fast. Really fast. Running national-level 400m times. Training with some of the best athletes in the country. But deep down, he knew something most athletes avoid admitting. This wasn’t going to be his career. In this episode, Ryan sits down with Josh Allan, now Head Coach of Men’s Rugby at the University of Toronto, to unpack the r...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Brad Stanton shares his raw, unfiltered journey from world champion fighter to entrepreneur, coach, and founder of a new wellbeing venture in Abu Dhabi.  Brad opens up about growing up in a disciplined, athletic household, overcoming bullying through martial arts, and rising to the top of his sport. But behind the success came personal challenges that forced him t...

Send us Fan Mail  Sometimes the hardest part of any journey isn’t the outcome, it’s learning how to make peace with what actually happened. In this episode, we explore what it really looks like to redefine success, especially when life doesn’t unfold the way you expected. We talk about the pressure to measure everything by results, how long it can take to genuinely feel proud of your effort, and w...

Send us Fan Mail Born with a disability and introduced to swimming as a child, Charlotte went on to become a Paralympic medalist in the pool before stepping away from the sport she had known almost her entire life. But retirement from swimming did not bring instant clarity. Instead, it brought confusion, anxiety, and a deep loss of identity she had not fully prepared for. In this episode, Charlott...

Send us Fan Mail Chris Lawrence went from debuting in the NRL at 17 while still in high school to building a business that now helps athletes keep learning during and after their playing careers. But his path was not a smooth one. In this episode, Chris shares what it was really like to be thrown into professional sport so young, the pressure of balancing school with first grade football, and the...

Send us Fan Mail At six years old, Will Mellors-Blair was named a child maths prodigy. By nine, he was modeling space and time on the football pitch. By eleven, he had already decided that sport would be a vehicle, not the destination. In this episode, Will joins Ryan to unpack a journey that blends elite football, advanced mathematics, artificial intelligence, and entrepreneurship. From the Manch...

Send us Fan Mail Ryan sits down with Tim, founder of Forged in Sport, to unpack what their research revealed after analyzing dozens of real conversations with athletes who were building businesses, thinking about it, or already deep in it. The big takeaway: if you don’t sort your identity first, the business won’t fix it. In fact, it can make the emptiness louder. Tim breaks down seven key insight...

Send us Fan Mail Joseph Ogacion grew up in the Philippines, once averaging 0.5 points per varsity basketball game, watching the Sydney Olympics on TV and dreaming of racing there one day. He wasn’t the tallest, the strongest, or the most resourced. But he had something else: the ability to suffer more than anyone else. Today, Joseph is a marathoner headed to the Paris 2024 Olympics and an elite ti...

Send us Fan Mail Ben Herring knows what it's like to be knocked back, knocked out, and still come back stronger. In this episode, he shares the raw, unpredictable journey from overlooked schoolboy to pro rugby player, then international coach. From New Zealand to Japan to Australia, his story is filled with lessons on ego, identity, starting over, and building a life beyond sport.  In this ep...

Send us Fan Mail In this epsiode, Ryan is joined by two-time Olympian and European judo champion, Gemma Howell. After a 25-year career that included 12 operations, strict weight cuts, and a near obsessive pursuit of excellence, Gemma opens up about what it truly felt like to walk away from elite sport. Now a full-time secondary school maths teacher, Gemma reflects on the challenges of injury, burn...

Send us Fan Mail Helen Alfano has worked in elite sport for over 20 years, supporting athletes across disciplines - from judo to netball - through the often invisible work of well-being and personal development. In this episode, she joins Ryan to unpack what it really means to support athletes as whole humans, not just performers. From early conversations about life after sport, to how programs ha...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when the only life you’ve known as an athlete suddenly stops? For many, the answer is silence, confusion, and a deep sense of loss. Emily Huston, a former USA volleyball player and founder of Home Team, joins Ryan for a real, thoughtful conversation about life after sport. From discovering her love for the outdoors to navigating identity, burnout, and depression, Emil...

Send us Fan Mail Lloyd Ashley spent years on the pitch as a professional rugby player. But what came after is just as powerful. In this episode, we sit down with Lloyd to talk about what it really means to transition from sport, how identity shifts when the structure fades, and how building a career in player support gave him purpose off the field. From playing for the Barbarians to working as a p...

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Zak Zafrani joins us for a conversation that breaks open a topic rarely discussed in sport: testosterone deficiency in men, especially in aging athletes. If you're feeling tired, low on drive, or like you're losing your edge long before you should, this episode will make you rethink what's “normal.” Zak is a UK-based doctor with a background in family medicine,...

Send us Fan Mail Simon Cox dreamed of playing for Reading FC. That was the goal. And while he wore the badge early in his career, it took almost 10 years and hundreds of games across leagues and countries before he finally earned his first start. In this episode, Simon opens up about the full-circle journey from youth academy to international football, the grind of lower leagues, and the reality c...

Send us Fan Mail Jabari K. Smith grew up believing sport would be his ticket out. He had the talent, the drive, and the stats to back it up. But when the NFL didn’t come calling, he was forced to reckon with something much harder: the silence after the final game. In this episode, Jabari shares his extraordinary journey from gang-affected childhood, to a life-changing boarding school, to a college...

Send us Fan Mail Charlie Hartley was living the dream. A professional cricketer who’d taken out top international players. Then, just weeks later, he was released. No warning, no time to prepare. Just a crash course in letting go of the identity he had built his life around. In this episode, Charlie opens up about the highs of pro sport, the brutal business behind the scenes, and how getting frust...

Send us Fan Mail Nekoda Smythe-Davis didn’t grow up dreaming of Olympic medals. She was just a girl from a London council estate who found her way onto the mat, fell in love with judo, and kept showing up through wins, losses, injuries, and identity shifts. In this conversation, she opens up about the weight of expectations, the complexity of walking away, and the courage it takes to rebuild your...

Send us Fan Mail Laura Sidall didn’t grow up dreaming of world championship podiums. In fact, by the time she started triathlon, she was already deep into a corporate career as an engineer. But something inside her kept whispering, what if you gave sport your all? How good could you be? So at 34, she left the comfort of her steady salary, moved countries, and bet on herself. This episode is a raw...

Send us Fan Mail Jamie Soward opens up about chasing the footy dream without a clear pathway, losing it all twice, and what it really took to reinvent himself. From writing résumés at 16 to training while on the dole, to playing in front of 60,000 fans and then selling toilets, Jamie's journey is as humbling as it is honest. He’s played State of Origin, won a grand final, coached at the top l...

Send us Fan Mail Rach Taylor knows what it means to sacrifice everything for one goal. She was Rach the Rower , a girl from rural Australia who made it all the way to the Olympic podium. But after winning silver at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she found herself couch surfing, broke and questioning her worth outside of sport. In this episode, Rach opens up about what it was really like to go from the...