AARON BROOKS

 In the studio today we have Aaron Brooks. Director of Harcourts Property Centre. Former QLD cup player and 11 times premiership coach, recently on the coaching staff of the USA Hawks women's side talks rugby league and mentorship and business.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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SPEAKER_02 0:16

Alright, Pirates fans, I've got the big bad Aaron Brooks on today for our podiums. So um Brooksy wears lots of hats, but he's one of the directors of Harcourts. I've been lucky enough to know the big fella for a couple of years now pretty well. And he's got a big footy pedigree. Recently went over to the States doing a bit of coaching with the national side over there, got a bit of a background in footy, so I'll hand over to Brooksy so he can tell us a little bit about who he is.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

I see you just want me to give you a rundown on the back. Yeah, just go from the state, just the whole life. Just happened to land in real estate, but footy's my passion, LA, you know that. Look, I played footy from the age of five all the way through until 22, I think I was, when I sort of had to make the decision, mate, whether I was going to be a real estate agent or whether I was going to play football. I was probably a better real estate agent than I was a football player, to be honest, but it's I love footy. It's a great passion of mine. I I only ever got to cup level, probably for two reasons. One, I probably wasn't good enough to be in the NRL, and I certainly didn't have enough discipline in LA. So I've learnt the art of discipline later on in my life, but I certainly didn't have it at the young 20s. But being in and around the space of rugby league is always a beautiful thing for me. It's I I guess I'm probably not so much a tactician of the game, but I love the ins and outs and the background of what goes on to get people in the right mindset to be able to go and deliver performance on the field. And number two, just bringing the connection of a team together to make sure that you know every boy, every man, every lady, every girl is on the field, committed in the moment, playing their part in the role.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

And mate, like my experience with you in business, aside from footy, has been a lot of those similar things. Yep. That's your role within the company. You're the one that gets a team fire and gets everyone rallied up, works on accountability, those sort of things. And there's a big crossover between team sport and business.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Oh, totally, mate. Look, real estate's a bit of a challenge to an extent where you know you look at most real estate people, they're they're there for themselves. They're they're the I guess they own their own income in terms of their day-to-day performance. But it is important that you have an environment like a footy side, like a business, whatever it is, that there is room for a good culture in those organisations. And we always talk about at LA with I'm allowed to swear on a podcast. Yeah, got to go. Yeah, but we have a pretty strict no dickhead policy where we're at. So we just don't engage in having dickheads within the team. And you know, I know that's a challenge in us, but it's also a challenge in a footy club, right? There's always people that think that their own interests are more important than everybody else's, and ultimately we want to make sure that everybody is on the same page and headed in the same direction. They're yeah, their responsibilities are to drive their own income and and to do those things for their families, and that's got to be at the forefront of what they've got to do. But they've also got an obligation to be a good quality human, play a part in the team, and make sure that everyone feels good about them being there. So there is correlation between the world of work and and the world of sport. And I guess I always love getting involved in that. Part and parcel of my responsibility in our business is to make sure that people's general level of of happiness is right. Real estate's a tough business to be in, it's full of ups and full of downs. And I guess my main focus is on the core humour behind all of that stuff. My business partners, Sam and Nathan, focus more on the day-to-day operation of a real estate business and what salespeople need to do and what they need to say and all that real boring stuff. I'd much rather focus on the person behind the message.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Yeah, for sure. The values and the mission statement sort of stuff. Yeah, that deeper level thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah, look, I think in whether it be rugby league or whether it be in business, if if you're not right mentally, you're not going to be able to deliver the value to your client that you need to, right? So if you're running out on the footy field and you get everything on your mind except for that game and the role you have to play for your mates around you, then you're not going to be best performance. So same applies in real estate. When you think day to day and you're leaving your heart at home when you go to work, well then your clients miss out on getting the full opportunity or the full experience from you, and it's not fair to them.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah, definitely. How important do you find honesty and accountability within a team in a business or a footy sense?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah, I think look, honesty from all angles, you know. I I it's probably fair to say that players need honesty from their coach. Uh about what what do you I mean, we've got a boy that's played cup and all of those things and probably lost a little bit of passion for the game because he probably just didn't get told the truth by the coach. Sometimes a coach to be in an environment where I guess they just want to try and keep all 30 men in the squad or women in the squad happy, and sometimes they're not really saying, hey, this is what I need from you. And that can be really challenging for a young guy that wants to have a solid crack. And so I think honesty works from coach to players. I think honesty also needs to work from players to coach, right? So relationships are all about honesty, right? I mean you've got to enter the danger on those things in a relationship because there's no point just having superficial conversations around things that don't actually improve you or don't get to the source of what the problem is. So honesty is the most important thing in any relationship. So each pert person knows where they stand, right? I think part and parcel being able to be honest is to actually be able to deliver the message properly. I like to call it a shit sandwich. Sometimes you've got to chew on a shit sandwich, but you need to chew on it because you need to really listen to what's going on if you want to be better. You might not necessarily like the taste of it, and we all don't, but we've also got to understand that long term that's gonna make us a better human, a better player, a better state person, whatever that might be. Long after people forgot what you said, they remember how you said it and how you left them feeling, right? So if you care enough about a person, then you're gonna be able to sit down with them with kit gloves and help give them the best advice for them, the best version of them, right? And I know that's a challenge sometimes because you're sitting in front of someone that you care about and you're delivering them bad news. However, they deserve to know what's actually going on and deserve to be put in the position where they can actually make change better.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Like that raises a super, super good point. And growth is uncomfortable a lot of the time, isn't it? A bit painful at times.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Yeah, a lot of the time, well, maybe not a lot of the time, but sometimes people aren't ready for the pain of growth at time until the band-aid's ripped off and they've got to look at themselves in the mirror, process it. Takes time sometimes, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, 100%. I mean, change is inevitable and growth is optional, right? And if you put it in perspective, you've got to sit there and say, Well, am I prepared to do the work? And and often that starts from in, right? I mean, there's three reasons why in life you won't succeed in anything. Number one, you don't know what to do. Number two, you don't know how to do it. Or number three, or someone or something is stopping you from doing it. And often that someone is yourself, right? Definitely. And if you can look in the mirror and say, hey, listen, I'm the problem here, accept personal responsibility for where you're at, your successes, your failures, all of those things, and mentally draw that line in the sand to say, if I want to grow, I've got to grow human, I've got to stop the excuses, I've got to be more accountable, I've got to kick in with my disciplines, I've got to get my daily routines in place. And I guess that's the thing, not everyone grows, right? Because not everyone's prepared to do the work that it takes to get there.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

And from coaching a lot of people, as far as footing and within business over your time, have you found a method that works more often than not as far as sort of sculpting habits, people being honest with themselves, those sort of things?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

I think me being vulnerable is the number one thing. Like I think if I'm coaching a person individually or I'm coaching a team, I'm just going to lead in with vulnerability because I think sometimes people don't be honest with the coach or honest with their mate or the person beside them because of fear of rejection or fear of looking silly or embarrassment that they don't know what it is. I lead into everything with vulnerability, and I'm the first person to stick my hand up and say, I don't actually know what to do in this instance, so I don't actually know, but let's find the answer out together. So being vulnerable, I think, is a really important factor in it. Because and that's just probably just shifting your ego side a bit too, sometimes. I think sometimes we think that as the owner of a business or the the coach of a team that we have to be the person with all of the answers, and you don't. You know, that's the challenge, isn't it? Just to make sure that you're vulnerable enough to say, hey, I I don't have all the answers here. I'm not perfect, but I want to learn. Let's learn this together. Leave the ego at the door because there's no room for it, right? Yeah, and knowing when to give someone a cuddle and when to give someone a bit of space to. Yeah. Look, I and that's probably just knowing your player or also knowing your teammate, whatever it is. And look, some people respond well to a cuddle. Other people go, you know, don't cuddle me. Like we've got some people in our business that just absolutely love you, being brutally honest with them and don't pull back. But but you've earned the right to do that, right? You this isn't the eighties and nineties anymore. No table thumping works. You can't just walk in there and give a group spray out to everybody in the in the team. And like, I reckon you got one good spray in your season as a coach, and if you use it in the first half of the year, you're cooked. And same in running a business. If if your sales team and that arena aren't performing and you decide to give them a big group spray, yeah, look, not a problem. You've got to earn the right to do it first because life's about deposits and drawers. Put more deposits into the relationship. The more you do that, the more you can make a withdrawal. And giving a group spray is certainly that. But in saying that, if that's your fallback position to help people grow, is to get angry and give them a spray, like we probably got when we first started playing football. I got that many sprays in particular. And it's sort of it probably just motivated me to an extent. But it doesn't work on today's society, right? If you if you that's it's lazy. You just got to get to know the person and spend a bit of time and understand what that's all about, build that relationship, and then you can enter the danger on things that you think they can improve on. But the tighter that relationship, right, the easier it is for you to sit down and say, Right, LA, let's mate, we've got to have a chat. Let's talk about a couple of things I think I can help you with. How do we do that? Offer up the suggestion. Like in any business, you've got to be the first person to identify the problem and the last person to offer the solution.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Definitely. And mate, you've been a big part of my journey over the last couple of years, which I'm very appreciative of. And mate, a lot a lot of what we're talking about here resonates on what's happened in in my life over the last 12 or 18 months with changing a bit of direction in business and going through a bit of pain to realise what the steps that I wanted to walk were and just sort of stumbling through it to figure it out. So there's definitely method to the madness, mate, and I appreciate your guidance throughout the process. Pleasure, mate. You've been in business for 20 plus years now, sort of running company, CEO sort of level stuff, head of the ship. How have you found the people within the business change over that period of time? Do you find that younger people in business are less resilient? I would say, is probably a way to put it. Maybe that's not the right way to put it. There'll be similarities between sport and business. Hey, you need you need to go things in a in a different way, like you just alluded to with you know, not spraying down the dressing room, giving every giving every upper cuts all the time and stuff. I hope I articulated that well, mate.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

I think, you know, rather rather than just cast aspersions against all of the young society, I'll probably just stop to say, look, things have changed, right? Like we're you know, growing up in this era is different than growing up in the era that I grew up in. And you're younger than me, mate, so you know, you probably had a little easier than what I did, but I think each decade that goes by just becomes easier, right? Um when it becomes easier, it becomes easier in the extent that you I guess you get more freedoms and flexibilities. Like my dad got absolutely dragged up. I probably got what's it somewhere between getting dragged and helped up somewhere in the middle. And I know my son, yeah, he's 24, he got helped up, right? So I think old school So I guess what I try and do now is just have some old school values wrapped around some new school techniques, if that makes any sense. Yeah. And and that's probably more just being real determined and disciplined around what I think is right and what I think is wrong. So staying really firm on that and probably just setting boundaries for those guys of what my expectation in that relationship is. They know that I'll go to battle for them in whatever extent it is, and they know I'll always defend them, whether they're right or whether they're wrong. I will jump in and I will defend them. But privately, I'll obviously have the chat to say, mate, that wasn't right, and see what I can do to try and curb some of those behaviours. I've just got to be the best example I can be. And I'm a whole lot more disciplined today than what I was in my 20s. So I've also got to cut slack. In my early 20s, I was doing crazy stuff, right? And I'll look at 20 something-year-old guys now and go, hey, you got you're in so much of a better position than I was at that age. You got coaching, you got a mentor, you've got someone that really cares, you've got an environment that's right for you. You're not having to go home every night to family, yeah, you're not having to be a dad, you got every opportunity at your at your fingertips to make this work, but you still can't get in the zone to do what you know you've got to do. So I think in saying that, look, people are people, right? I think things change over the years, but any leader or coach or anyone's responsibility is to get inside the heart to then get inside the head of any person that they work with. So if you think you can just roll straight in and start teaching someone about footy or about business or about real estate or about all of those things without having some kind of connection in their heart, a real good, trusting, solid foundational relationship. If you go straight for the head before the heart, it won't work, right? You've got to get inside their heart. You have to build a real foundation of trust and respect there. And once that's there, they're more inclined to want to do things to not let you down than they are to let themselves down. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And the beauty of the process where you get a group of people that stack hands and are all working in the same direction and and having a crack to a common goal is pretty special to be a part of when you can get those mixes right, eh?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Yeah, and and I think that's just allowing the the team, like a user, uh a Twitter team, whether guys or or girls, the that we're all the same that we we want to get on the same page. We I guess we want to be really about what that goal is, but we also want to have control over building what that looks like. And I think guide of the days of a coach just jumping up and saying, right, oh guys, this is what we want to do, this is how we're gonna do it. Yeah, it might work for a little while, but the motivation of that speech will drop off. What really needs to happen is that everyone needs to buy into it at all levels, right? So, me, wherever I play on the field, I need to do my job well. Number one, I need to buy into what the end goal is, and that's everything down to being on training on time. When you're there, be there physically, be there mentally, turn up for your mates. Every opportunity that you get to exceed the expectation of the bloke stand beside you, you do it. You don't miss the little things. The one percenters are done. We all reconnect, we all talk about what's going well and what do we need to improve on. All of those things are building to the destination. Like we know that the destination in most cases is to win a GF or something along those lines. Now, a GF is not, for my personal opinion, you you start winning your GF from your session, right? If you have a really good, strong pre-season, you're working into it, you're building relationships with the boys around you, those trust levels are growing. We're all focused on what it is. We're all about the team, we're not about individuals within it. If someone else has taken my position because they're playing better than me, then I've got to pedal back and say, right, what do I need to do to earn my spot back in that side? Because the bloke that's in there is doing a better job than than I can at the moment for whatever reason. And I'm proud of the fact that it's going to help my teammates get to the right result and not be selfish about I've lost my position to somebody else. Well, just don't get bitter, get better. And part of that is accepting responsibility by looking in the mirror and saying, What do I need to do to be a part of the unit to help it achieve what the ultimate goal is?

SPEAKER_02 15:01

The old Patty Mills, tower whip, cheerleader. Sometimes you just got to play your role even though it's not where you want to be, hey. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Like just if a team is a hundred percent focused on what the end goal is, your personal ego get needs to be left out of it, right? Because part of our responsibility is to drive the entire unit to what the goal is. It's not just about what self-gratification can I get out of this process from start to finish. What do I get? What's in it for me? What's in it for you is having value in the part that you play with in that greater unit.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Like when we talk from a grand final sense, like that penultimate sort of goal, like so many things have to fall into place for you to win one.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Hey, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Have you did you win many premierships in your playing days?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

I did not want win one. I've coached 11 grand final wins. I won nothing. Like we won presidents' flags and pre-cup challenges and those different things. One junior origins and Australian junior school boys, all of that stuff, yes, but I'd never ever won a grand final as a player. But 11 as a coach, right? And I to be honest, I get more or a buzz out of that.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Yeah, mate, that's that's awesome. But it's mate, a lot of people have got those same stories, hey. Yeah, yeah. I suppose for anyone that's listening that is lucky enough to win a grand final, cherish it. Think about the little things that go into it. Absolutely. Because yeah, I've been I've been lucky enough to win a couple of senior grand finals, one of the pirates too when I was down at Canberra. Yeah, we did we lost one grand final when I was in juniors, but until I was a a grown man, my one experience of a grand final was a loss and been part of some pretty amazing bloody footy sides. So yeah, you've got to have a lot go in your favour to win them. Yeah, for each. Yeah, awesome, mate. Well, mate, uh, as always, it's been great to just have a yarn. And mate, none of this is scripted, this is all off the cuff. So, mate, I I love how vulnerable and open you've been, and I hope the the punters listening get a lot out of this and get a bit of a glimpse of who you are as a bloke. And I certainly look up to you as a mentor, mate. So I appreciate you coming on here and passing on a bit of wisdom to our followers and our fans, mate. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

And I guess being you know, we met a couple of days ago just to have a chat about the you know the responsibilities for uh from our perspective, being a part of sponsoring the club and and things like that. And the value for me isn't you know just saying, all right, well, here's a bit of money to a sponsorship. I'd do that anyway. But the value from my perspective is to make sure that we can get down there and and just add some value generally across the board. Because I think Nathan, who we love to call Spud, talks about because he looks like a Spud. He we often talk about things like you know, paying your community rent, being a part of a club like you are, mate, and you volunteer, you've done it for years and your time and those things at the club, passionate about it, right? Love to get down there and get amongst it and get a genuine feel about what it is, you know. Played a bit of masters for you guys a couple of years ago, which was great. So wouldn't mind strapping the boots back on again. I've probably got five or six kilos before I could do that with any kind of efficiency. But yeah, just looking for looking for forward to a great season. That'd be heaps of fun, mate.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

For any of the academy kids that are listening or the parents that are listening, there's gonna be some Aaron Brooks collaborations coming up in the gym. Yeah, a bit of a bit of wrestle.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Love that. Look, you I'm sorry, can I am I okay to just keep rolling for a few more minutes?

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

I just want to talk quickly about so I just come back from America, had the privilege going over there with Troy Clarkson, Daniel Strickland. I don't know if you know Stricky, with the he's a SNC guy for the Cowboys.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

And look, it was that was an unreal experience to coach those girls. So we had a girls, American rugby league team, we had the men and we had the juniors. I predominantly focused on the girls, and I tell you, that was one of the most unbelievable experiences for me. Like we basically took these girls into what would be like an origin camp. So we just took them in, had really set structures throughout that time. Our selection criteria for that wasn't, I mean, to get them involved in the team in the first place, there's not a lot, there's not a big pool to choose from. And we ended up having seven people in our team that had never played a game of rugby league before, and they're playing for their country. They're playing rugby union or grid island. And just guess that week, we're just trying to meld them together as a team, right? So that's there's a little bit of one-on-one coaching and training on this is what you've got to do, and this is your main job in the game, and and those things. But it was more just connecting them as a group of women to say, right, we've got this opportunity. If we win this game, we we automatically get into the World Cup in 2028, and and that's what the end goal is. Unfortunately, we didn't get the win, but we completed in the first half, we completed three sets, and the penalty count at the end of the game was 16 to 2, and we're on the losing end of both of those, and we only lost by trying to convert a goal. So, like at the end of the day, that was our game to lose. We should have won that. But we didn't. That week was the most unbelievable experience, and obviously going to go back again next year and we're gonna try and do it because if we can win, we've got to beat a top four side. We we lost against Scotland, they were their number eight in the world. If we beat a top four side, then we automatically qualify for next year's. But I think if we had a little bit more time and just a few more little disciplines around just keeping our stuff together on the field and you know playing within the rules and things like that, we the penalty camp would have certainly been less and we would have had a bit more possession. I think we win the game. But I'll get another shot at that. But that was just so much fun, mate. I love doing that. And I'm not saying men are not coachable because there's lots of really coachable men, but women are highly coachable. You watch them do something and say, hey, listen, if you try it this way, what do you think? Yeah, okay, no worries, that's great. And then they just do it. They there's a lot less ego because you know, one of the young blokes, the nine eens, he was doing something, and I said to him, mate, just hey, if I can I give you some feedback on it. And he goes, Yep. I said, mate, try and do it that way. He goes, that's what I was doing. I said, mate, you weren't doing that. Yeah, yeah, I was, I was, I was. Anyway, so he did it again. So then we had in a post session, and I just ended up being exactly where he didn't want me to be. And I said, That's what I'm telling you about. Oh, okay, right. But yeah, you know, the women were fantastic. Give them they they're just coming to you all the time. What can I do better? How did I do that? What improvements can I make? They're all out there doing extras. It was amazing. Great experience.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

It's so good to see the growth of the women's game. Yeah, well, that would have been such a cool experience going over there for that.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah, no, it was good, and yeah, I loved it.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

We've got a one of the boys from the USA Hawks playing for us this year.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah, I was talking to a couple of the guys over there about it, actually. They said, Yeah, you got our mate, he plays for Noosa.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Yeah, mate, he is he is gonna have a good season. It's such a cool story. We'll get him on here at some stage, but yeah, he's got wheels, he scored a couple in the trial. Big athletic, strong, lovely bloke. So we'll have to for any girls over in the USA that are listening, we'll have to get them over.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Oh, mate. Come over for a season.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

There we go. There we go. Happy days. Yeah, and look I'm really excited to see how our senior women go this year. Our whole senior programme, really. Yeah. Ron's been putting in the work, and round one next week is gonna be cool and beautiful. Yeah, lots uh lots of good things going on in Pirates Land and Yeah. We love it. We love it up here.

unknown 21:45

So good.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Awesome, mate. You've been so generous with your time. I really appreciate you jumping on and having a yarn. Is there anything else you wanted to sort of touch on while we're we're here?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Not at all. But if anyone, you know, I guess needs a bit of help or support in any arena, they want to have a chat to me about footy or real estate or anything. General, just reach out to LA, he'll flick the number on and touch base. I'm here to help.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Yeah. And look, a reminder to all our listeners too lots of our sponsors put their hard-earned cash into the club. Yeah, if you're thinking about doing something, just have a look at who's on the books with the sponsors at the club first and reach out to them and have a yarn because they're yeah, they're good people. Everyone that sponsors a non for profit footy club is is probably a pretty good person and worth worth your time to have a conversation with at least.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Beautiful. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Beautiful. Well, mate, thank you again. Pleasure, mate.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Anytime you like. Happy days.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Sounds good. We'll have to do volume two after this. One's a screaming success.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Done. Love it. Thanks guys. Thank you.