Hi, Gus Walland here and welcome to Not An Overnight Success brought to you by
Shoren Partners Financial Services. In this podcast we sit down with some very
successful people in the world of business, entertainment and sport to chat
about their lives and their journey and how they became the success that they are today.
In today's episode we are chatting to Brad Freddie Fiddler, a man that was an
absolute hero of mine growing up and I can't believe that he's a mate now.
Freddie is arguably one of the best plays in the game of rugby league. He was a boy from Penrith
and could never sit still. He belonged on the footy field and it always came easy to him.
Freddie captained his state and his country, made 16 seasons and almost 450 games at the
highest level. For this chat we went to Freddie's home and you'll hear us talking about that in our
chat. After a workout and some meditation together we sat outside in the sunshine
where I got to know Freddie on a deeper level. This is a type of interview where you kind of
forget that the microphones are there and everything is recorded. You'll hear birds
chirping, Freddie's llamas in the background and the occasional crunch of toast. Put it this way it
wasn't the most professional setting but it brought out some sides of Freddie that I hadn't seen
before. Freddie is a larrikin who has never lost sight of where he comes from. Freddie and I share
a passion for mental fitness, he's an ambassador for Gotcha For Life and he's the coach of New
South Wales but the most important part of that role for him is not just coaching the boys, the
professionals, those three games a year but actually going around the state, making people
fall in love with the team, making people fall in love with the process and also understanding
that he's bringing up these youngsters through the under 16s, the under 18s. It really is all
about making sure that those players are the best possible people that they can be. As for all of
these podcasts, Shaw and Partners have generously donated $10,000 to the charity of the choice of
each of our guests. We discuss who that money goes to in this chat. The executive producer of
this podcast is Keisha Pettit and we couldn't do it without our great mate, Kelly Stubbs. Let's get
into our chat with Freddie Fittler. Well here we are, Freddie Fittler, how are you mate?
I'm very well. I want to set the scene for our listeners. We are sitting at your beautiful
property, I won't say where it is. The sun is shining, we've just done stretching, meditation,
bit of strength work and we're sitting outside your beautiful house in the sunshine eating
watermelon. How good. A boy from Penriff done good. Do you ever sit back, Freddie, and just sort of
look at it and go, wow, this is pretty amazing. I've played footy and this is my life now. Well,
the amazing part about this place is the plants. The majority of them I bought is $2 plants and
that was at the start of COVID and we had all that rain. So they're now turned into these things
every day where bees are coming in and we actually live in a house that's got one bathroom and there's
two teenage kids, my wife, Marie and myself. So we don't live lavishly at all and every morning
you can imagine what the household's like. But once you walk outside, plants are unbelievable and
I've just, over the time I've, you just fall in love with them and it never stops. So it gives you
something to walk out to every day. And as we were doing the workout today, which is an outside
workout, just the fragrances and stuff that come from it. And all the bees. So it's a great time
of year. Yeah, absolutely beautiful. Speaking of beautiful, Freddie, Marie, she's just literally
lobbed out with the green juice and some toast. Vegemite. Oh, how good's that? Thank you so much.
There we go. This is the best way. I didn't hear the juicer. Does that mean that this juice isn't,
has this come out of it? No, this is the best juice. We listened to a great comedian last night,
can't think of his name. And he does a great spiel on juicers, like just how ridiculous
having a juicer is. You know, you go and buy $40 worth of produce, shove it into the juicer,
you get out a thimble of juice and then you take three hours to clean it up. Like seriously,
how did they ever sell juicers to people? Unbelievable. And that bucks 50 a small,
$12 a medium and 16 a large. Freddie, your mum's visiting at the moment. She popped out and said,
when we were doing our workout this morning, she had a real sense of calmness about it.
Has that always been the case? Yeah, I think so. She's just always been there as a kid and
even through my teens and twenties. And you only realise now what it's like being an adult that
you've got your own teenage kids is that I was just off and running. Mum tells me stories when
I was like about two years old that we went into a place in Liverpool, we used to get on the bus,
mum would go and do the shopping with two kids. And she went to this place, it was like a community
place. And she said, can you just take him? Can you just take him? I need a rest. I just can't
deal with it any longer. And I'm gathering that's what I was like. I just say, you know, for a long
time, I just didn't stop and never look back and just kept going a lot of the time in the wrong
direction. And a lot of bad, bad decisions along the way, which you can tell now getting to my age
50, where you sort of wonder where a lot of your urges and that come from. And, you know, it's the
things you do as a 10 year old and a 12 year old. And you can feel that stuff coming through. But
you know, I was flat out. When it comes to your life, and I know a few boys from Penrith that
lived a pretty wild life, obviously, MG Mark Gire, I spent a lot of time with on the radio doing
Brecky. What was it like out there? And when you say the bad calls and stuff, are they things you
look back on and now it's just part of the journey or you go, oh, gee, I'm lucky I got away with that?
No, totally lucky. Very lucky. You know, you're dealing with alcohol drugs at 12 and 13 years old.
You're really lucky to get out of it. And you can just see all the urges and that your fight now are
from them. Smoking, drinking and drugs all from, you know, year eight, you know, and I look at my
kids now, they're much older, they haven't had to deal with any of that stuff. And a lot of the
stuff that comes from that, you know, you'd obviously, you know, the field you'd deal in,
you know, mental fitness and so many of the kids in that block that I grew up in, dead,
for all different reasons, jailed, dead, just weren't lucky enough to have something to bring
them back down to earth like I did with sport. So was it just rugby league? Yeah, probably,
there's other sports. I loved everything. I love school. You know, I really enjoyed school.
You know, I had to be just my mind had to be onto something. Flat chat. The foot was down,
mate. The foot was down. The foot stopped at about nine o'clock at night then woke up about
4.35 in the morning and off again. So footy come easy, really easy. I was good at it young.
And you know, obviously it just worked. I love cricket. You know, that was where we grew up was,
you know, footy and winter cricket in summer. Didn't really play much else played a bit of
basketball. Yeah, that was a pretty awesome place to grow up was like a school was put in the middle
of the day, but you're still you're playing from seven o'clock in the morning and then you finish
the six o'clock at night every day. It was like a huge caravan park. Now your mum was such a huge
part of your life. I've never heard you talk about your father. Was he someone that was absent or
I'm not too sure. So dad left when mum was pregnant with me. Okay. So I have an older brother
and I ended up meeting my dad, Robert. I met him when I was about 19 or 20. I still chat with him
now. He drives a truck over to Western Australia and back to Brisbane and you know, we're a pretty
good relationship. We don't see each other often, speak every now and then, but it's all cool. Yeah,
but I didn't meet him till I was about 20. Were you nervous meeting him for the first time? I think
so. There was nothing I pined over. I wasn't out chasing. Mum sort of organized it, but
and I was flat out. So something in front of me to take my attention.
Whatever was behind me, it was already old news. So never felt like I grew up missing anything.
I do realize now not having a father, the relationship I have with my kids, being there
with Marie, you can see how I think a, you know, a happy relationship would could work easier.
You know, I can see the things I missed, you know, that discipline, I suppose, talking about,
you know, the smoking, the drinking and all that sort of stuff at a young age. I could imagine
that'd be a bit of a father's role to identify that stuff. So, but outside that, no, didn't miss
much. I remember my dad left the family home when I was quite young and I just craved other blokes,
dads or older brothers. I looked up to them. I asked them the questions and I ended up having
a couple of really good mentors that gave me the help that I needed with girlfriends or
choices to be made and so forth. Did you have anyone like that, that you
could go to and talk to about stuff? Most of the coaches, you know, obviously I
assimilated with the coaches because that's what I did. I was playing footy or playing cricket
and they were always really kind and I had a lot of sort of adults, male adults that looked after
me and my coach at Cambridge Park was good, Barry Scanlon, really good fella. You know,
give me a bit of work, you know, in the holidays and do a bit of concreting and I don't know if
I did much. I don't know how much, yeah, if I added much value, but yeah, he was always a great
help. I had a lot of really good teachers that showed a lot of care. So yeah, I mean, I felt like
I had plenty of male influence. Gus Gould would obviously be someone that our listeners would know,
you know, and he obviously went to the Roosters as well with you after success at the Panthers.
What sort of role does he play? What sort of bloke is Gus?
Well, he was there at the crucial stage. It all came really quickly. So I was, you know,
high school in year 12, I was 17, playing in semi-finals for Penrith and 18, playing in
grand finals, playing for Australia and, you know, getting fully yourself. So yeah, he was there to
pull me back down. Some real stern talking too. Times I went and moved with him, lived with him
for a couple of months and he thought that was the best path and I was at the time. So he played
a huge role in that crucial stage when you need someone to tell you to pull your head in, but then
also have enough courage to then provide a home for me. And it wasn't just about him just sitting
me down in a corner and telling me how bad I was. He also then, he has that level of compassion where
he realised that I needed more than just a chat and moved in and spent three months. So yeah,
he was a huge part. You said playing for Australia, semi-finals, grand finals, you know,
those sort of roll off the tongue, those things, because you weren't even 20 when all that stuff
happened, winning premierships and so forth. What was it like, Freddie, to actually get a
phone call or did you get a phone call to say that you've been selected to play first grade
initially and then secondly, you know, playing for your state and your country? How does that all
happen for a young Blake? So I played like the junior rep teams and I played with a boy named
Peter Stacker and his dad was a reserve grade coach, Len Stacker. So after the competition,
I think we got beaten the final by Illawarra in that. And then a couple of weeks later,
they rang me. I was on like a scholarship with Penrith. I think they give you like a thousand
bucks and some gear and stuff. So I had a meeting with Len Stacker and said, do you want to come
play reserve grade? So I took mum and we just sat there and went, you know, I was nervous about
playing men. You know, that was a step up. So I said, yeah. And we played Manly. They end up,
I think Manly won the grand final year. I think Penrith will come in second or third last. And
we went out and I scored a couple of tries and nearly got bashed up. You know, it all happened.
So then the week after, at Penrith, what happened, you used to walk through the change rooms
and there'd be three pieces of paper on the wall. It'd have president's cup, reserve grade,
first grade. And whatever piece of paper you're on, that's which direction you went to train.
So after the first week, we played Manly in reserve grade, walked in and then my name was
on the reserves for first grade. So one game I was playing first grade. Wow. The fortunate thing
was I was, my best mate was Ben Alexander. So Greg Alexander, obviously, his brother,
who I knew through Ben and he was the star. And then Mark Gyer was going out with Ben's sister.
So I knew him. So, you know, I wasn't walking in like a total stranger,
pretty much never looked back from there. What was it like to look at your name on that board?
Were you shocked to see that after one performance in reserve grade, you were in the ones?
Absolutely. Just went, all right. I had to ask them, where do we train? Where do we go now?
I hadn't done this part. So off we went. It was funny though, you know, there was no,
it wasn't about accepting. There was no, if you waited for someone to come and talk to you,
then you'd be lonely. You had to sort of take a position and you had to own a position.
And anytime around 40, I've always felt comfortable. So I've always felt like I knew what I was doing
and I felt like I could take a position. This is the beauty of doing a podcast outside. Look
over your shoulder there. You've got some llamas or something there. Like, what's the story there?
So I watched a show, Dr. Harry. Oh yeah. He did a show on a lady in Goulburn who had llamas and she
had them like pets. But then when they went through the habits and traits of a llama,
they don't rip the grass out. They eat across the top like they mow. They poop in the one spot.
So that's obviously comes in handy. It's a win-win. Yeah. And their poop doesn't smell. So
you don't have to deal with the flies. Oh, why do they get such a bad rap? They're a bit,
they're a better. They're a great animal. Honestly, other than the fact that they remind me of
Laganese and suburbs type where they look wonderful and they sort of look like they're interested in
talking to you. And then when you get closer, they just pull away and say, get away. I'm not
talking to you. Who are you? You're like an Eastern suburbs type of animal, you know? I get it.
It's actually amazing that people don't have them like, you know, just, you know, as
yard pets because yeah, they're fantastic. Yeah. Do you have your name them? Barak. Barak? Barak
Obama. Yeah. So Barak needs a partner, Michelle. And the other one, the baby's Betty. That's so
good. They're very cool. Mate, you've built a little paradise here. It's beautiful, Freddie.
So Freddie, you've been picked for first grade. You're in there with all these internationals and
so forth. Do you ever feel that you're not ready? Do you ever feel that you shouldn't be there or
is, like you say, your a hundred miles an hour attitude and your skillset and people giving you
the right advice just makes you feel that you're a part of it and should be? Well, the first game
was a scary game because that was pretty much the first time I played men. You know, there were
moments here where making my first tackle and doing that sort of stuff. You know, once you got
over, once I got over the fact that men, they ran a bit harder and a bit bigger, but you know,
the same technique that you're using on kids worked on men. There was a moment where there's
a boy named John Jones who played for Manly, big front row and yeah, I was on the ground. So he's
come down and hit me. I can, I don't know whether it was an elbow or whatever it was. And so I'm
thinking, well, what do I do here? You know, there's a couple of moments in these early games where
well, what do I do? So I thought I'll hit him back and then said, I don't know if I ever hit
him. You know, I just, whether I pushed him and at those stages you could fight. So he actually
grabbed me pretty much by the throat and he was just about to hit me. And it was a boy named
Tracy Lazenberry who was an English fella is our lock forward. And he just stopped his arm.
There's a couple of these wonderful moments, but I'll remember Tracy Lazenberry
forever for that moment that he saved me. But once I got through those moments and you know what,
I played in a really good team and they looked after me and protected me and gave me plenty of
room to go and be myself. So it was a great way for a kid to come into first grade. It was
extremely lucky. And success came pretty quickly, you know, like the fact that they were ready to
go. That team was ready to go. MJ and Brandy alone, you know, just the toughest forward and
the most skillful back, you know, once you got them and you just fill the rest of the pieces in.
And there was plenty of other good players, John Carderoy and Royce, obviously tough and
Brett Izzard and Steve Carter, and it was plenty of good players. So many magical moments there.
And of course, we remember, you know, Royce scoring a double and I've been to many functions
with MJ where it's just, you know, still looked upon as that magic moment the first time, right?
The first is the best. Absolutely. We got there the year before, so we didn't win.
You know, running out on the day is pretty exciting. So you don't want to take that away
from everyone. I know we sort of dwell on winning so much, but running out on the day, give your
fans a chance to cheer. Not everyone wins. And we didn't do all right, you know, our build-up
wasn't right and there was plenty of things wrong with what we did that week. But we got it right
and we were behind and MJ got sent off. Plenty of challenges thrown at us and when Greg Alexander
kicked the goal from the left-hand sideline to make it seven points clear with about a minute
to go, you know, that was, I sort of stopped concentrating. Then it was a lot of work, you
know, and so I'd only been there a couple of years, but a lot of those blokes had worked for
12, 13 years to get to that. So I sort of got to realise how they felt when I won it in 2002
with the Roosters, when you got to really work. And you build it. You got to build it. Yep. And
you're the main structure. You got to build it from the start. Yeah. You know, there's processes
in place and patience and bad times and there weren't many bad times leading up to that one.
Yeah. So you win the comp. There's a photograph I've seen of you and Greg Alexander and Cartwright
and MG, all four of you going off to England to represent Australia, all from the Penriff
District and stuff. That's on MG's table there at Triple M radio. It's this thing he just looks
at when he sits down and I must have seen it a thousand times. What was that like to get picked
for Australia? That was a year before. So we got beaten and you go back to the club and the club
was packed, you know, thousands, you know, like just sea of people. And what had happened was
Wally Lewis, during the week, had done a fitness test. He broke his arm and they ruled him out.
So there was a position available, like in the backs really. So yeah, Carty, MG, Brandy and then
I got named. So it was mostly out of me or Brett Izzard. He was mostly the unfortunate one, I
suppose, Brett Izzard. You know, and I wasted it. I was, you know, they're hard work kangaroo
tours. You know, it's a lot of drinking. There's a lot of man stuff going on. I was 18 and you know,
I wasn't ready for that. You can see how rooming with certain people and all those finer details
that I think about now while I'm coaching, you know, they're so important. And like Chris Johns
is a champion fella and we're really good mates, but he loves a beer. I'm 18 from Penrith. So once
I've had one, I'm not stopping till 20. I didn't handle it very well at all. So I'd love that time
again, but unbelievable experience. Just incredible. Rugby league at the time was huge and I know the
super league in England now is still big, but those kangaroo tours were, you know, must watch
viewing for us back here, you know, and the huge crowds, sellouts and that sort of stuff. Just
as an 18 year old, I was 18, I went on a gap year to England and I just sort of fart-assed around
down the Somerset by myself. And I found that was challenging, you know, let alone being on the world
stage, you know, being wanted and respected as a footballer must've been really hard.
No, I don't think so. I don't think it was hard. I don't think any of it was hard really. It didn't
feel hard. The hardest part was coming back fat, overweight. That next month of training was hard.
Yeah, yeah. So that was, that's what I always found the hard part. The really,
the really hard training is the hard part, you know, the footy I love. The stuff that comes in
feels like it comes easy. You know, every time I've played I always thought my team was going to win.
So I always give myself a chance. Yeah, the hard part's the training. No pre-season.
Well, if you toured, you didn't do pre-seasons. That was a bonus. That's what killed me at the
end, you know. My last couple of years, I was, you know, from 28 onwards I retired from rep footy.
So I didn't play for Australia in the off-seasons and I did every pre-season, every session,
and pretty much just ran myself into the ground, you know. We finished strong and
finished career strong, but yeah, didn't miss anything. Just quickly interrupting the episode
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Let's get back into the episode. What was it like, Freddie? Like you say,
your big moment was obviously captaining a foundation club like the Roosters in 2002.
Your last three seasons were all grand finals. I remember when you were walking back towards us
at ANZ Stadium and you'd been smacked in the head so you were bleeding, you had that bandage,
and you'd just put your hand up when you knew it was the one and we just all went up with you.
What was that moment like? You could just see there was, you know,
I was just walking straight towards them because I was going back into position and my position was
the closest to the fans. And it was a position I loved because there was always Adrian Morley
behind me and I'd catch the ball and pass it on to Adrian and he was like the toughest bloke I knew.
So it was a great way to start the game. But just walking back into position,
I knew where all the crowd were and just standing there like, you know,
bit of an acknowledgement. It was awesome. We hadn't won it for a long time. I just
remember it in 2000 as well. You played a lot of grand finals here in those last few years of
year. We played four in the last five. So it's funny when I, you know, when I want to feel full
of myself, I wonder, you know, I played in six grand finals and won two. So that sits me back
down a little bit. I lost four grand finals. Anyway. So if we move forward, you play in those
grand finals, you eventually retire. A lot of blokes struggle once they hang up the boots.
From the outside, it didn't sound like you did because you went pretty much into media and
that type of stuff. But what was that like, that transition from playing and being that type of
player to not playing anymore? In the final year, we're living in the city. So I moved,
I lived on the beaches for a while and realised I had to move closer to training. So I had to
move off the beach and get in. So I moved into a unit in the city, in the rocks, which was like
10 minutes to train. So I'd moved in in the year 2000. That was just the start of dedicating my
life to footy. Everything up to that stage emotionally had been done on talent. And then
it was just working that process in of just, you know, being in the car at a certain time,
getting a train, doing this, doing this and just working a routine that was just unbreakable.
And I just worked out once you get a routine, find out what works and just keep tweaking it.
But what I did when I finished was moved out of the city and I went and bought a place,
I didn't own a builder and just built a house for 18 months. So I was there every day.
And you work out that, you know, being around a team of tradies has similar aspects to being
in a footy team. You know, you catch up before work and you have a coffee and you have a chat
and then you go about your day and sit down and have lunch together. And you can see, you know,
there's plenty of appeal to it because they're comradery working together. So I did that and
I did an assistant coach with Chris Anderson. And then pretty much as the house finished,
I coached the roosters. So once again, I never had time to look back. So just kept plowing on.
Let's talk about coaching because it's something that you're now doing and you've been very
successful as New South Wales coach, but not just coaching the team, but building
a team that the state love. And that's why you love your rural trips so much and you
spend so much time out there. Why is that so important to you to make sure that that role
is not just the three games a year? Well, because it was set up in 2000 and
we did Laurie Daly. I think when Laurie Daly got the job, about 2000 and to 13, maybe? 12, 13, yeah.
13. So Pertus Stirling asked me on the footy show because the job was coming up. Ricky shorted,
I think he was going to Parramatta and couldn't do both jobs. And Pertus Stirling said,
oh, would you do it? And I said, yeah, why not? You know, not even thinking. So Laurie Daly was
always going to be the coach, but that then forced it sort of into a process of sitting down to do a
job interview. It was the only job interview I ever did. It was hilarious. And did you go all
right in the job interview? No, terrible. I had no idea what a job interview was, what I had to do.
I basically went in there because Mal was the coach and they were doing so well. And I said,
well, I played Mal as a player. I got a lot of respect for Mal, but I'm not intimidated.
And I feel like we just need a bit of a change of players. And I had some lists down when I
thought it was important, but no, it was quite hilarious really at the end of the day. So it was
good, but I wasn't ready. But what I did do, I knew that I have this theory that if you can start
by doing something for someone else. So what we did was we went around, I grabbed Heiner, he likes
riding a motorbike. And I said, well, let's go around and find a way to put some work around a
motorbike ride. And so we went around and what we did, we just asked all the kids, you know,
who do you follow? Who do you support? Who do you favor players? And a lot of them weren't saying
New South Wales players. So realized at that stage that you had to, we had to sort of find some young
kids coming through with the good young kids. And at the same time I was coaching the 16s and 18s
New South Wales teams. And I didn't know it at the time, but they were all coming through there.
So Ken Murray, Nick Cotrig, Nathan Cleary, Latrell Mitchells, all these young blokes,
all coming through the 16s and 18s. And at the time I had not been the coach, we made 11 changes
and they were pretty much all to those kids that I'd coached as 16s and 18 year olds.
But that all started. So pretty much the groundwork from getting the job in 2018 was done five or six
years earlier. When Laurie took the job and I just said, you're going to coach, I said,
I want to go and do this. And I assisted LODs for a couple of years. And that's where I got the
foundations of what I believe in and who should play for New South Wales and what they should be
about. Great success as well that's come with that sort of philosophy. I know you're a big,
big man on putting good people around you and not thinking you've swallowed the map and you know
everything yourself. So can you tell the listeners your thoughts around just making sure
you have good people doing important stuff for you as you finish your Vegemite taste?
That's right. Obviously the players are important, but the staff, they can take you down different
roads. So it was of the utmost importance. And then before I did that interview in 2013,
I went to Greg Alexander. So he's my show, the smartest bloke I know. He was the best player on
you. So I said, well, if I get the job, you're going to have to come and help. So he said, right.
So he's come along. And then there was Danny Bediris, who I did the 16s and 18s with. And
he was the last captain I played for New South Wales. When I come back in 2004 for a couple of
games. And he's the toughest bloke I know. And Craig Fitzgibbon had not come along. He used to
defend again next door. He stood next to me for like five years. So I could rely on him. I had a
Nolensville bloke I'd been training with. And we did a few of the city teams in and amongst there.
And he sort of believed in what I was about. So that was pretty much the start of the team. So
yeah, they're all, they're just solid, decent human beings. And that's where you need in
coaching staff, you just need to be solid. When you've had so much success and stuff now,
is it just, what's that like that moment where the series is one, that moment where you just
know that it's done all that hard work and that planning, because we get insight now, you know,
we get to chat to you during the matches and so forth with the media coverage. But
what's that actually like? Is there a moment where you're all just together and you can just
shout and scream and because it's done? Yeah, there's a time, you know,
and you knew it as a player. So you weigh up how many tries can be scored in certain amounts of
minutes and all that sort of raw. So you do know, you know, there are times of games, you know,
it's not necessarily the siren. You know, I think we won the first game by 50 in the second game
was 26 nil. And the second game was a contest for a long, a big part of it. But they're fantastic
the players, if anything, just to watch them the way they played was, you know, you could really
sit back and enjoy it. They really did it at a top level and not just, you know, flamboyant tries,
but just the way they work together. Everything we do a training is about working together. We
have moves and plays now, but we talk about just working together, supporting each other,
anticipating each other. And some of the tries they score were just, you know, next level,
which I don't think I've seen before, especially at origin level where players don't play together
week in week out. So what it does do, it just justifies your beliefs. You know, we do a lot of
alternative stuff that no one's really done before, you know, whether it's breathing and just,
you know, whether it's earthing, breathing, whatever it is, it's all the human stuff.
So the human stuff works. Who inspires you, Freddie?
Everyone. What about your kids? I know how much you talk about them, how much you love them and
stuff. I get inspired by mine all the time. I learn from them all the time. It's an old school
way to say, I'm the boss and you do what I say. But I think kids these days, you can flip it,
can't you? You can learn a lot from them. Yeah. If I had a theory is listen to while
people hang with young people, listen to people who've done it before. And then you got to hang
with young people. You know, they're just, they're at it. You only got to sort of just glimpse back
into, you know, your own sort of past to realize how much energy you got as a teenager and stuff.
And you just want to be part of that. So I love it. They get into their training and I love how
the fact they can get up and train and they don't have to ask. And I don't know if, you know,
they don't need prompting at all, which is inspiring in itself to me. Like, you know,
I just watch how much challenges kids have got these days and they've got so many things to drag
them down. You know, so to watch my kids just get up and do shit without having to be asked,
couldn't ask for two better kids. And then that obviously is a reflection of Marie who had early
on talk about the lion's share. Is that what they say? The lion's share. Yeah. The heavy lifting.
She might have done the elephant's share early on. I don't remember waking up much to the kids.
Freddie, before we finish up with our fast five questions, I want to ask you just,
where do you see yourself in the next five to 10? You just keep going, keep rocking and
rolling with New South Wales. Keep doing what you're doing. I hope so. You know, to do what
I do, like you still, you know, it takes a lot of discipline and a lot of, you know,
you still got to be driven to be doing all that. And, you know, I don't make it easy on myself.
So I just know that if you do, then you just don't get the fruit. So you don't get the great
stuff, but eventually it'd be great. Marie's Greek. So it'd be good to spend more time in
Greece at some stage. I can say that maybe in, you know, 10, 15 years, you know, I really love what
I do. You know, I love the Channel 9 stuff. It's fantastic. And the coaching's just, you know,
that's just a gift to be able to get all those good players and, you know, have a crack at
something that's, it's pretty tough. It's the dream jobs at the moment. Fast five questions,
mate. Righto. And then I can have some of that Vegemite toast that's been sitting there. Pretty
cold. I'll take anything at the moment. Favourite holiday destination? Sussex Inlet. Oh, really?
Just as a kid. They're my best memories. Who'd you go with? Our whole family. So there was
my grandmother. There were six of them. They were all sisters. They were awesome. All their kids.
And we just pretty much rent out one whole corner of a caravan park for a couple of weeks.
And I just look forward to that more than anything. Just so it's just used to drive my
older uncle's mental. Drove him insane. Come and do this. Come and do that. You know, they'll sort
of party and do a bit of that stuff, which I didn't realise, you know, but they were great
to me. You know, they always gave me time and best memories. Sounds like it. Favourite movie?
I think it goes through stages. I like the American president, Michael Douglas. Yeah.
It's a really good movie. Yeah. That's a really good show. I like it. That's a good bit old school,
mate. Yeah. I'm trying to think what one of my new favourite movies is. Are you a Von guy? Are
you a Mission Impossible? Yeah, I love all that. Top Gun. I'm trying to think of The Borns. So I
read that book. So I'm sort of a little bit hooked on them, but I've watched all them plenty and
plenty of times. But I reckon the American president is the one. If I had to waste two
hours and only had two hours left, I'd go to that. Okay. Are you a book reader? I just read
Sonny's book. Actually, I've got Sonny's book on Grand Final. And I used to read lots of books
when I played because we travel a lot. So I was just constantly reading in my room constantly
and sort of stopped. I did a few audio books, but more when I started coaching, I started doing
all the stuff around the, you know, the mental side and just trying to knowledge myself up
that way. But after reading Sonny's book, I only read that in a couple of days. So I'm going to
do a lot more reading now. I'm going to start reading again. I'm going to bring your book down.
It's called The Second Mountain. Right. It's like you reach your peak. So for you, it would be the
fact that you were one of the best rugby league players of all time. So people go, well, that's
him. He's done. That's what his life was meant to be. But you get to the top of that peak and you
go, oh, bugger, there's another mountain just that I couldn't see before. And that's called
The Second Mountain. It's like, actually what you're meant to be doing in life is The Second
Mountain. Well, you know what? I can see the start of it. You know, there's things that I've been
working with and I can see it. Well, Jacco gave it to me because he reckons that I've got my
second mountain now with Gotcha for Life. You know, he said, well, you think you're going to
do that? Oh, mate. Oh, no, actually that's the next 20 years. That's going to be the stuff you're
going to be remembered for. And that might be for you a whole lot of stuff that you haven't even
done yet. But coaching obviously would be a part of that. Favourite quote? Have you got a quote
that you live by or someone told you? Yeah. I actually made one up. I don't even know if I
read it before the other day. Well, let's write it down. And then I gave a friend of mine,
because I really enjoy writing. I love writing. You know, I write letters and I love just
writing. I'm giving someone a journal. Nice. And my quote on the inside is,
life is worth writing about. And I don't know if I've heard that before, read it before,
but I'm thinking I might claim it. I'm writing it down now. What's it called when you
plagiarise? I hope I'm not plagiarising someone, but it just sort of come to me.
Be Fittler. Life is worth writing about. Yeah. We're locking it in the chores, baby. You like it?
I do. Yeah. And it's true. Oh, absolutely. I just did a meditation course for five weeks.
And off the back of that, it's a, it's called meditation for men. He's a bloke in,
a bloke called Jason Partington, Jason down in Newport. He's an absolute bloody champion.
And I actually met with him a couple of days ago and he brought me a journal and said, right,
start writing this stuff down. Yeah. Start not being worried about things, saying what a wonderful
opportunity is to do it rather than being worried if it's going to be a success or whatever it might
be. So I just started writing down some quotes and some bits and bobs. It just calms you,
doesn't it? Oh, writing's the best. I've got a little corner, you know, you can see where my
arse, you can actually see the shape of my arse in the corner of this lounge. And I just plonked
myself, you know, like six o'clock, Peter Avedon's about to come on. It's the first time the
tele goes on, there's Pete. And then I just, you know, and I feel me riding out and I just
enjoy running, riding. What do you write about? Oh, anything. So it goes through a process. There's
some things I want to tick off every day. There's some breathing, some stretching, some hydration,
some talking. So I just, you know, give them a bit of a score if I've done them. And I normally do
all them by about six to 30. Other than the talking, obviously. Yeah. And then there's just,
some things I want to do in a day. And then just whatever happens in the day. If something
special happens in the day, I'll just write. But I need another book because I've sort of got that
much, you know, what am I trying to show? They're 10 centimetres to write, you know, at the end of
the day. Yeah, you need pages. You need pages. And there's times where you just, you know, really
write. And a lot of I've got around my joints. So I'll set up all areas that have got little
seats everywhere. So that'll be the writing seats. So then, yeah, it's going to be my thing from
50 on. So I'm 50 next year in February. So things you've learned. Yeah. Life is worth
writing about. There you go. I did one age ago. Yeah, a long time ago. So it was very different.
But I don't know if I write a book, but I just like writing, you know. Yeah. Just writing for
yourself. Just writing. Yeah. Last but not least, your favourite charity, which we're going to give
$10,000 to as you're coming home. Favourite charity? Yeah. I like the one you do, Gussie.
I'll do that one. Gotcha for life. Thank you. I think, yeah, it's hard speaking about something
that we did so naturally as kids, you know, where they just doesn't seem to come as natural these
days. So finding good friends and hanging out and yeah. So huge challenges, huge. And I think
they're being dotted. They're not being helped. So you've got a big job out here. Yeah. Well,
people like you that helped me as well. I've got some, I've got, you talk about putting a team
around you for New South Wales. Well, it's the same with Gotcha for Life. You know, great
ambassadors and not just a name, but someone that can go is, Hey, I'm going to live it myself and
I'm going to turn up at an event and I'm going to put my hand up. And it just helps sell tickets.
It helps people talk about it, helps awareness, but we need action to go behind the awareness.
That's the key. And that's what we do when we do our trips out to the country. And we're going to
do one again, I think in February, we're going to go North and South for a couple of weeks. And
I love that stuff. That's the one thing I feel, you know, and I've got a young daughter who sort of
listens to a lot of, you know, but there's no action. There's very little action. So
we all need to sit every day or every couple of days and sit and talk. Yep. You know,
we need to set them up. Well, when we have the face to face, it's these surf clubs,
let's say 257 people at Avalon. All those blokes walked in that night and they thought they're
going to be the only person there. Yeah. And all of a sudden they realised that other blokes are
going through stuff. They talk and go, well, oh, maybe that's how I felt. I tried this and this.
And all of a sudden it's a positive conversation around something that's natural. Yeah. And that's
what life's all about is not sitting in your own stuff, talking about it and being vulnerable
enough and lead with vulnerability. And that's what we're going to do it. Gotcha. So it's good.
Thank you so much for your time, Freddie. Beautiful. Sitting here, having a bit of
breco. Good morning. I've ticked off all my boxes now. My God, tens. You've done it, brother.
Just tens. I'm now about to get on a motorbike and go for a ride. How good's life? Wow.
You deserve it, brother. I'll probably be riding today. See you, mate. Bye.
That was Brad, Freddie Fittler. What I loved about this chat was he was just so relaxed. The fact
we were sitting in his front yard with the lemurs there after having a workout, having some toast
and having some juice. For someone like me that looked up at Freddie and now a friend of his,
I just keep pinching myself that we have this type of relationship that we can just talk about
absolutely anything without any dramas at all. Coming up in our next episode of Not An Overnight
Success is Betty Cleminco. Betty is the daughter of Westfield co-founder John Saunders. She is
among the wealthiest women in Australia and the only one to have her own professional racing car
team, Erebus Motorsport. Her life has been anything but ordinary. If you've enjoyed this
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or share it with someone that you think might also enjoy it. A big thank you to
Shaw and Partners Financial Services who have generously supported this podcast and also donated
$10,000 to the charity of choice of each of our guests to thank them for their time.
Shaw and Partners are an Australian investment and wealth management firm who manage over $28
billion of assets under advice. With seven offices around Australia, Shaw and Partners act for and
on behalf of individuals, institutions, corporates and charities. For more info,
you can check out their website at shawandpartners.com.au. That's S-H-A-W for Shaw.
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