We were given a lot of responsibilities from about five or six years of age.
We were driving cars and driving our way to the bus stop and doing things that probably
normal young kids...
You were driving to the bus stop at the age of five?
We'd be sort of...
I couldn't see out of the steering wheel, but by saying you haven't got all the answers
at that particular moment is actually a healthy thing.
You'll find a lot more people willing to get in and help you if they know that you're struggling
Hi, I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review.
And welcome to Fifth Demons with the BOSS, a podcast about success and failure and everything
And of course, along the way, we're hoping to get some really great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is John Longmire, the executive director of Club Performance at the Sydney
Thank you so much for coming in.
Now, John, as I said, you're the executive director of Club Performance at the Sydney
Swans, but you were a senior coach of the team between 2011 and 2024.
Under your leadership, the team won the premiership flag in 2012 and made the grand final in 2014,
That's a lot of playing the whole season.
Indeed, you coach the Sydney Swans for 333 games, and you're only one of 25 people in
the AFL to have coached more than 300 games.
And of course, before your coaching career, you're a player and you played for North Melbourne.
That's a long time to have been involved in football and to have been involved in coaching.
What's the best part about coaching?
I get asked a lot about what's best, is it playing football or coaching football?
I'd always put coaching football at the top because you're a lot more aware of the impact
on so many more people from supporters to boards to coterie group sponsors, partners.
You're so much more aware.
And so when you become a coach, one of the great things is that the network and the reach
you have is so big and so many people love the game.
We're the number one supported team in the country.
So when so many people love your club and love the game, it's a great privileged position
You've just got all those stakeholders that you've got to sort of pay attention to.
You're much more aware of that.
And when you're a player, you're essentially worried about your performance and your teammates
performance and it's a bit more of a smaller view of the world.
Whereas when you're a coach, it's a lot more wider and there's many stakeholders, many
wide and varied that adds pressure, but it also adds great joy and great reach to be
able to get out to those people.
All right, John, we've only got 15 minutes.
We better not waste any time.
The clock starts now.
My first question is, what happens at the beginning of your day?
What time do you get up?
I get up at 6am and I'm usually in at work at about 6.35, 6.40, so pretty quick transition
And then I'm either on a bike or I'm in the pool.
So it's a general sort of 45 minute session before I have a shower and start my work day.
And do you do the breakfast thing?
I have breakfast at the club.
So we have a great facility there, a football club, and so I sit down and have breakfast
It's a pretty light breakfast there.
And do you think about having been a player and having been in high performance athleticism
for so long, do you think about protein and what you do, what you're putting in your body
That's refreshing.
No, I don't think too much about that.
It's what's available generally.
It's what's available.
We're lucky enough, a number of mornings a week, there's a team there that do some cooking.
When they're not there, we just help ourselves to whatever's available.
So I'm not too fussy.
My next question is about a pivotal moment in your career.
Was there something that you worked on, a big change that happened that really changed
the whole trajectory of what you were doing?
There's probably two, if I can have two.
Sure, you can have two.
There was probably one when I grew up on the farm as a 16 year old, I was going to be a
farmer, that's what my dad was, and I was really enjoying that type of lifestyle.
Where was the farm?
Down at Coral in New South Wales on the Murray River, but at 16 the opportunity came to go
to Melbourne and play professional AFL football, and I was given that decision making process
My parents said, and you make the call, so that was significant.
I always thought I'd be down there for two years and come back and haven't quite got
So that was the first one.
The second one was when I decided to come to Sydney, my wife and I, or my girlfriend
at the time, now my wife.
End of 2001, I was working for an international management group, one of the biggest sports
management companies in the world.
I'd retired from AFL football, was loving life, and then decided to jump into coaching.
That was a pretty significant moment, 23 years ago, that's really changed where our family
lives as well as what I do from that point onwards.
So when you were 16 and you first came to Melbourne, was that a total culture shock?
Did it take you a long time to sort of get into Melbourne?
I was working in the city in an accounting firm and I came straight from the farm at
And so I was getting a train into work and back and I was a fish out of water big time
and I probably struggled a fair bit early days, but they put us in in club houses.
So I was living with three other young fellas in a clubhouse and we had great fun.
And do you think you learned anything from that idea of being the fish out of water?
It put me right out of my comfort zone at a very young age.
I was used to being out of my comfort zone on the farm anyway.
It was always, we were given a lot of responsibilities from about five or six years of age.
We were driving cars, driving our way to the bus stop and doing things that probably normal
You were driving to the bus stop at the age of five?
Yeah, well six, yeah, six.
We'd be sort of, I couldn't see out of the steering wheel, but we found a way to do it
because that's just what happened in the country.
You just find a way because your family, your mum and dad were pretty busy.
So you just had to find a way of doing things.
So when I went to Melbourne, it was another big step.
I'd probably been used to making decisions, but that was a big step as a 16 year old to
move to the city for the first time without your family.
And, but it also taught me to mature and grow up a lot.
And I think that was good for me in the long run.
And what were those first year or two like as a coach?
Did you take to that immediately?
Was it quite difficult to move from that sort of player side to there being the coach and
having people rely on you and ask you questions?
And you can't be everybody's mate as the coach, right?
Whereas as a player, you're the mate.
Yeah, I retired at a young age too.
I retired at 28 and then I spent three years working at IMG and then went into assistant
coaching under Paul Roos.
And I guess I was still the age of some of the players.
Tony Lockett, for instance, made his comeback around that time.
And, but I always found that okay.
I didn't, didn't have too much drama with that.
And I was very fortunate at the end of my assistant coaching period to be able to have
a handover period into senior coaching with Paul Roos.
And so I was very fortunate to work with Paul for a long period of time that taught
me a lot about how to manage people.
My next question is what is the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?
It's from an old coach I had and it was, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
I thought it was pretty succinct.
It was very sort of straight down the line and something I've turned to quite often.
More so when you've got challenges and then when you're going through some tougher times
as a coach or a leader, you've got those, you know, and often in the job that we're
doing high media scrutiny as well.
When it feels a bit tough, you've, you've got to remind yourself they're actually in
a privileged position.
And in our case, as a senior coach, there's only 18 in the country as in AFL coaches.
So in the old adage of if it was easy, everyone would be doing it stands pretty true.
So does that then give you confidence that someone has the confidence in you to do what
So you should have confidence in yourself that you'll get through the hard time.
There's faith that someone's got in you to be able to have that position of authority
or leadership or whatever you like to call it, that they've got faith that you can get
through any situation and, and therefore you have great faith in yourself too, because
that's probably the most important thing.
Quite often early days you make a lot of mistakes and you still make mistakes as you go through
and you get older.
I've got a seven out of 10 leadership rule.
You know, if you get seven out of 10 things right, that's a great result as a leader,
but it automatically means you're going to get three out of 10 things wrong.
So don't let those three stop you from doing the seven.
That's interesting though.
The seven out of 10 rule.
I talked to her about with our captains every year, I just talked to our leadership group
and particularly our captains that they're not going to get everything right, but they're
in that position because generally they get most things right and I think that that's
all you can expect.
But I think that's a challenge because a lot of people do expect of themselves they will
get everything right.
For instance, when I first started senior coaching, I'd do a press conference and I
wouldn't go to bed until I'd seen it online and used to be, you know, back when I first
started, I wasn't online until midnight.
So I used to have to wait up until midnight just to make sure I didn't make any mistakes.
Then I got to the point where I couldn't live like that.
You couldn't keep being concerned about how many mistakes you made.
So I came to really feel comfortable with making mistakes, particularly when you're
making decisions all the time.
On that note, John, we are going to take a short break, but don't go away.
When we come back, we're going to open the chatterbox.
Welcome back to 15 minutes with the boss.
I'm here with John Longmire, the executive director of performance at the Sydney Swans
Now, John, this is our section called the chatterbox.
In front of you is this lovely, shiny brown box inside of which today are about 15 questions.
I'm going to ask you to pick them out one by one and we'll continue with a little bit
I get to read the questions.
Oh, you read it out?
I'm in control of this.
What's your favourite party story you like to share?
I went to Las Vegas one year.
Samuel L Jackson hosted the ESPN Sports Awards and I was fortunate enough afterwards to go
to an after party and met Steven Seagal, Samuel L Jackson, Andy Garcia, some of the biggest
names in movies at the time, and Steven Seagal actually gave me his personal cell number.
So we were managing Cathy Freeman at the time, who won the ESPN Sportsperson of the
Year, and he invited us down to his ranch in Texas, but never quite got there, unfortunately.
So you mentioned Cathy Freeman.
How do you think someone like her would have handled the pressure that she was under in
that 400 metre race at the Olympics in Sydney?
We were really fortunate that our company managed her and I shared an office with the
girl who was a personal manager, so we were able to see up close how she handled it.
It was just an amazing experience.
I mean, the way that she dealt with that, having the pressure of the nation on her at
that moment, I'm not sure there would be too many people would have ever experienced the
pressure that Cathy experienced at that final at the Sydney Olympics.
And do you think she has or had techniques to cope with that, like breathing or somehow
being able to block out the pressure that was around her?
She had a few different things that she used to use, but she also had good people around
her. Her team were really good people.
And they were able to not shield her, I guess, but sort of use some space around her to be
able to allow her to focus on what she needed to do.
She needed to play a role and do a job and her main job was running fast.
And so her preparation was outstanding.
You would have had similar circumstances as a coach.
You may not have the entire nation's eyes on the Sydney Swans, but there are a lot of
very big pressure games.
How did you coach or how would you coach your team to how to deal with that pressure?
Usually try and particularly if things aren't going well, you try and get them to zero
back in on to just do one thing really well, because sometimes if you if you're thinking
about all the noise that's around and you're listening to all the commentary around it or
you're not sure which way to turn, some of the best advice you can get, I think, is to
just concentrate on what your job is, what your task is at that particular point and
make sure you do it really well.
And that usually helps get through all the noise.
Right. OK, I love that.
OK, next question. Have a fish.
I'll hand it to you this time.
Who is a leader, business or otherwise, whom you admire and why?
I've got a couple.
Trent Robinson is a friend of mine, who's coach of the Sydney Roosters.
He's a wonderful leader over an extended period of time.
I look at the ones that are able to do it over a long period of time at the height of
their game, not just one or two years.
I think he's been able to do that.
And what's made him special, do you think?
Why do you admire him?
He knows his players.
He knows his people.
He knows how to get the best out of people.
And I really admire that.
I think it's one of the great strengths you can have as a leader or a coach.
And in the business sense, I've got to know Robin Cooter, who's the CEO and founder
of Air Trunk, and he's a Sydney Swan supporter.
And to hear what his story is like.
Well, Robin built a company in 2015, started by himself, had the foresight to be able to
come up with an idea and then the courage to be able to back that in.
And then he got the right people around him.
And then nine years later, sold the company for twenty four billion dollars.
That's right. Twenty four billion dollars.
And then he was able to reward the people that went on the journey with him.
So what a great story.
And the company is in data center, right?
That's right. Yeah, absolutely.
So what I loved about it is how he shared when he eventually sold the company, how he
shared the profits with a lot of his staff and a lot of the people that came on the
journey with him and just talks to the really the quality of person and how he
appreciates the people that help build the company with him.
And do you think that's in general, very important to share the the spoil, share the
benefits, the joy of attaining something amazing?
We can imagine the loyalty you get out of that or the dedication from your staff.
You get out of that or the love from your staff is incredible.
If you've got staff that generally love coming to work because they've got skin in
the game and they get rewarded for that, whether it's financially or otherwise from
a leader, they're going to give you a lot more.
And the people at Air Trunk have given a fair bit over the last few years and hopefully
they're rewarded well.
Yeah, true. Have another fish.
So what has been the hardest day of your career or the hardest thing you've had to
Pick a football club up after a devastating loss and when you're not feeling great
yourself. So when things are feeling really bad and you feel it's a very public sense
and particularly the game that we play being a national game, it's very public and on
the biggest stage in front of one hundred thousand people and millions on television
and to be able to lead the club, I guess, through that, but also how to respond on a
Monday in a personal sense is really important.
So you're aware of how everyone's feeling on an emotional sense.
You're aware of how your players, your staff, everyone around you is feeling, but then
you need to make sure that you look after them and care for them in the right way and
then give them the right message to to your supporters.
So, you know, there are challenging moments that you've got to make sure that you get
the messaging right.
So do you to an extent have to put a bit of a barrier up in front of you and block out
what's happened so that you can front up to the media, you can front up to your players?
Do you have to sort of block yourself for a little while in certain circumstances?
You do. But in other circumstances, in particular, when you're talking with the players,
I think you let them in to how you're feeling.
There's certainly some of the things I've learned as a leader over a long time is the
more vulnerable you are, the more connected the people are around you.
And rather than standing up and telling them this is the way you should feel or this is
what you should do, tell them how you're going and actually being quite open with them.
And adds a connection that's that you'll be paid back many years down the track.
And by saying you haven't got all the answers at that particular moment is actually a
healthy thing. You'll find a lot more people willing to get in and help you if they
know that you're struggling with it.
And I think in the end, that's a really positive thing.
I think the most vulnerable leaders are the ones that they get the most out of their
staff. And by saying that you haven't got all the answers all the time is actually a
positive thing. I think that's been the biggest shift in office and in leadership and
probably the last 20 years.
Now, I don't want to focus on the negative because getting to the grand final so many
times isn't achieved such an amazing achievement.
But is there any one particular grand final loss that stands out more than so more so
No, no, no, they're all they're all tough ones.
They're all tough ones. And each grand final has got their own storyline to it.
I'm fortunate that we were able to win one would have been great to win two or three
And you've been there. That's that's the important thing.
Yeah, interesting. OK, on that note, John, you have passed with flying colors the
chatterbox section.
I am now going to ask you one more question, which we ask everybody who comes in.
And that is if you weren't doing your current role, what would you be doing?
I'd most likely be a farmer.
Oh, you'd go back to the farm.
I'd be back to the farm. I've been meaning to go back there for many years, but my
brother won't let me drive the tractors these days because they're worth over a
million dollars each. He probably doesn't trust me.
Why would you want to be a farmer?
I guess it's in it's in my blood.
It's where I grew up. It's where I was born.
My whole family is still back there.
I go back there every summer for harvest.
I love it. It's just once it's there, it's hard to get out of your system.
It's my downtime when I want to switch off from football.
I talked to my brother on the phone about farming.
It's a great part of a very fortunate part of my growing up.
I love that. OK, on that note, John, our time is up.
John, it's been so great talking to you today.
And I really love the idea that these jobs aren't easy.
If they were easy, everybody would do it.
So you just have to learn to back yourself.
You've obviously been dealing with pressure for a long, long time.
It's been great hearing how you've managed to do that.
And also that idea that you need to get things right seven times out of ten, the
seven in ten rule is something that I will definitely take back with me.
So thank you again so much for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the boss.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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