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Today on the podcast, we're joined by a rugby legend and also a pioneering teacher and headmaster.
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Floyd Steadman was the first black captain of Saracens, one of Europe and the world's leading rugby clubs, and he was a headmaster at schools across the UK as a truly brilliant teacher.
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Floyd also happened to be our teacher.
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Both Cameron and I had him as our sports teacher, and he was someone who had a profound impact on our lives.
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And I would say for myself, probably beyond my parents, Floyd had more of an outsize impact than almost anyone I can think of as a 7-year-old and an 8-year-old.
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I know Cameron, you feel the same.
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So, what are your reflections on Floyd's impact in your life?
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>> I'd love to just tell two two small anecdotes which I think capture capture a lot of Floyd and the impact he had on us and so many other boys, and I think even parents at the school we were at growing up.
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Uh the first is just Floyd had a a really quiet but profound gravitas, uh and he never raised his voice.
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He was firm, he was tough, but he never raised his voice, never got angry.
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And that really did leave a big impression on me because I think we went to school during an era when you know, some of the teachers would shout louder at the boys, and the boys certainly would shout loudly at each other.
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Um and to see that someone would could command sort of the room and have such respect from people without ever losing their temper or raising their voice was something that had a profound impact on me.
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And the second little anecdote I want to tell is that Floyd you you were the you were kind of an innovator.
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You had the ideas of morning routines long before the uh Tik Tok influencers did 25 years later or James Clear's Atomic Habits.
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I remember distinctly you telling us boys that 20 press-ups, 20 sit-ups, 20 burpees was the secret to a to sort of a healthy, happy day uh and would give you all the fitness you needed.
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And that's something that's I still do actually all these years later.
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Um and yeah, again, a profound and lasting impact.
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You also had the what seemed like a contrarian idea at the time that we should shower every day, and that personal hygiene was important.
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Which is another one I remember.
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Um but yeah, so uh thank you for that.
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And what what about you, Tommy? >> Yeah, very similar.
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You know, Floyd for me, even though he was our rugby teacher and a football teacher, it was actually less about, you know, sporting prowess or things like that.
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It was really about the fundamentals of integrity, decency, and there were plenty There were no shortage of disciplinarians at the school I went to.
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But actually, I learned about discipline and about respect and behavior more more from Floyd than from anyone.
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I think cuz it was it was coming from someone who was so aspirational, this incredible rugby player, um but who was all about basically human decency and standards.
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And I'll never forget a great one that that Floyd did to me.
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He made me captain of his of his under-10 football team.
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Um so, you know, captain of the A team, big honor to be the football captain.
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And uh all excited, about to go to the big away game down in South London against our fiercest rivals.
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And we get onto the coach to go to the game, and I suddenly realize I forgot all my boots.
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And so, I go to, you know, I go to Floyd, Mr.
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Stedman, with a sob story, expecting him to kind of be soft on me and, you know, get somehow magic up some boots that I hadn't bothered to get.
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And uh to my shock and horror, the the arrangement was made very clear.
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So, I was going to get uh boots given to me from a poor unsuspecting soul called Henry Davis, who I think was in the under-10 D team, who was on the same bus going to the same fixture for the D team.
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And Henry would donate his boots to me so that I could play, you know, center back for the football team, and captain the side.
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And that sounded pretty good to me.
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Uh Henry was kind of blinking at me, looking looking a bit confused and and upset.
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But then the catch came, which was I would be substituted at half time, and Henry would be, you know, moved from the from the D team to to the center of defense with the A team, and be made captain, I think, which caused a lot of consternation all around.
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But taught me a great lesson, that, you know, there are consequences to not having discipline.
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>> Yeah, you never forgot your boots again.
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>> Never forgot my boots.
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I I was telling Floyd before we started recording, I I have sort of, you know, recurring nightmares about forgetting my boots that still last 30 years later.
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So, but an amazing amazing impact, Floyd, and really brilliant to have you on this very special edition of of Giant Ideas. Welcome to the show.
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>> Well, thank you both very much indeed.
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And, you know, your your words are very humbling.
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And there's part of me that's honored to be on your wonderful podcast.
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There's another part of me that feels a bit of a cheapskate because I know that you interview these these titans of industry, and now you've got Floyd Steadman.
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So, hugely hugely honored.
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Um but um I'm also there's some trepidation as well, boys.
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>> This is the one we've been looking forward to genuinely more more than any.
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Um and we're doing this, of course, in in a big British Lions uh week.
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British and Irish Lions rugby tour going on right now in Australia.
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We're going to come to that and your influence on the captain of of that rugby team towards the end of the show.
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But we want to start right at the beginning.
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You've written an amazing book called A Week One Summer.
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And I want to go back to that week if it's okay and and just start because you have an extraordinary life story that we were not aware about at all.
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I think very few people were were aware about at all until the book came out.
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Um but you ended up running away from from home as a very young boy.
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Not for a few days, but for a really significant period of time.
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And I guess that changed everything in your life.
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But would would love just to kind of get a flavor of of that life story, maybe starting with that week that summer.
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>> Do you do you mind if I go back a little bit further, Tommy?
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Um because I'm a product of the Windrush generation.
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My parents came over in 1956 from Jamaica.
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Um and I remind people that they came over with thousands from not just across the Caribbean, but also from Southern Asia, from East and West Africa.
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Thousands of people from the old empire were invited to help rebuild the motherland after the destruction of the Second World War.
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And when they came, they were confronted by a lot of hostility and aggression and racism because they had darker colored skin.
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But in my family's case, there was another challenge because my father was a bully. He was a misogynist.
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He was a wife beater and sadly he became a child beater.
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And before my first birthday, my mother walked out.
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There was a very very messy divorce and she just walked away from him and she walked away from her two children and I never ever saw my mother again.
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So I went to live with my father, you know, the bully, the misogynist.
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And um I won't go into detail, but he was very very unkind and I still have physical scars from some of the beatings that I took from my own father for doing very very trivial things wrong.
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And I put up with this for a number of years.
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And I got to 10 years old and there was another beating for something which was almost certainly very very minor.
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And he locked me in the bedroom on the first floor.
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And something just flipped in my mind and I thought, I can't take this anymore.
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I opened the bedroom window, climbed down the drain pipe.
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A 10-year-old boy climbing down the drain pipe from the first floor.
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Ran across the garden, jumped over the fence and I took off. Um and I was on the run.
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And as you quite rightly said, if you hear of children sort of running away and they should never anyway, they normally run away from home for an hour or two, then they should have come back.
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Well, I was on the run for nearly 3 weeks.
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And people say, "Floyd, how did you survive? What did you do?"
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Well, as I was jumping over that back fence, my dad's back fence, one of my neighbors saw me.
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And I was convinced he was going to tell my father and this bid for freedom was going to be thwarted straight away.
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And what he said surprised me.
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He said, "Floyd, don't worry. I won't tell anyone."
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He then added, "Oh, and I'll leave my shed open."
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And I thought that meant that if I wanted to, maybe I could sneak back into his shed.
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And that very first night that I was on the run from the police and they were definitely looking for me by then, I managed to sneak back to my neighbor's shed.
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He left the shed open and he left a blanket there for me.
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So all through sort of my difficult years, I know I now realize there were people in the background just keeping an eye on me and trying to steer me in the right direction.
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Now, it wasn't always possible to sleep after his shed, and the other safe place for me to sleep as a 10-year-old black boy on the run in Northwest London was in a local park.
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Uh one of the slides had a little wooden structure hut at the top, and I would sometimes put my head down and try and sleep at the top of the slide.
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So, I found places to sleep, but I needed to eat, and I had no money.
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And I got myself a job as a 10-year-old.
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I can't believe I'm still saying this.
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As a 10-year-old boy, I got myself a job, because back in 1969, uh most people had their milk delivered early in the morning.
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There was a fleet of electric milk floats all over the country.
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And I spoke to one of the milkmen, and I said, um well, I basically asked him for a job.
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And he gave me a job as his runner.
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And I would sit on the back of this electric milk float, and he would drive around and say, "Floyd, we need two pints of milk to number five."
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And I'd jump off and take two pints of milk and put them outside.
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And this was uh a job that I did from about 6:00 till 11:00 every morning.
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And I was paid in old money.
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I'm so old, it was before decimalization.
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So, it was seven and six in old money, and that was enough for me to go and buy myself a big breakfast at the local cafe, and then a packet of bis- biscuits for later in the day.
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So, that was my sort of my upbringing, my life for sort of nearly 3 weeks.
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Then I bumped into some some school friends, and they said, um they were really excited about going back to school.
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And I was excited cuz I wanted to go to school, because I realized that my one route out of the difficult life that I had was through working hard at school and getting myself an education.
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But I didn't want to go back home cuz my dad would beat me.
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But I remembered that one of my primary school teachers lived nearby, so I went to her one evening, knocked on the door.
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Her and her husband let me in.
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Uh they gave me some food.
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And then, uh uh Cameron, they did the right thing.
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They contacted the police and the social services to come and take me home.
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And the image that I just cannot get out of my mind is standing outside my dad's blue front door flanked by policeman and a social services worker and my father looking at me with a a look of utter disgust and saying to the policeman, "I don't want him back. Take him away."
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My own father said that about his 10-year-old son and I was taken into care and I spent nearly 8 years in care. Should I stop there?
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>> Th- thank you for sharing that incredible story, Floyd.
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And you talked about there about a bid for freedom and not wanting that bid for freedom to be taken away.
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What what were your I imagine your emotions as a 10-year-old boy must have been all over the place, but ultimately did you feel any positivity that you were getting away from a situation that you had managed to escape?
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Um or I imagine also there were feelings of, you know, complete abandonment and loneliness.
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What were you feeling as a 10-year-old boy during this time?
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I think the most important thing is about survival.
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You know, it it it it's fight or flight and for me it was a matter of flight and try and survive.
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Um even at the age of 10, I'd worked out that my best chance was away from my abusive bullying father.
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Um and that was that bid for freedom and when I was taken back, there was a mixed feelings because obviously you want to be back in the home situation, but I didn't want to be with this awful man.
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And when he turned round and said, "I don't want him back."
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I was completely blown away and I thought, "Well, what happens next?"
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Because I had no idea what was going to happen next and it was the the unknown and you're the the the trepidation about you to have no idea.
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And then I was taken into care and I was put in this um children's home with some very very very tough boys.
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And you learn to become streetwise very very quickly.
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>> And from there, maybe give us a flavor of, you know, just the key people who influenced your life.
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You already mentioned the neighbor who who didn't tell your your your dad that you'd run away.
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And then you went into care, and as I understand it from reading the book, were were placed with an amazing family who who really looked after you and showed you an immense amount of love.
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Moving from that early childhood experience through to being, you know, an incredibly respected rugby player and and and teacher and head master eventually, who were the the two or three people who really influenced that journey?
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>> Gosh, I would say I've got to put right at the very top the the couple that looked after the second children's home that I was in.
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They were an amazing couple, and they had nine boys from broken homes that they had to look after.
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And it's interesting, Cameron and Tommy, because when you hear stories about people that were in children's homes in the 1970s and 1980s, you hear stories of abuse, a lot of abuse.
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That didn't happen in my situation.
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They were very loving couple.
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And and one thing they did that really epitomized how they were looking after looking out for me, when I got there, I was the youngest boy.
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There were nine of us, and I was the youngest boy.
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And there were three dorms.
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There was a dorm of five beds, a dorm of three beds, and a single dorm or single bedroom for the oldest boy.
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After a few months, the oldest boy moved on, and we all just automatically assumed the next oldest would step into that single bedroom.
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I was put in that single bedroom.
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Now, that was a challenging time for a couple of weeks, but we all got over it.
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Looking back, I know why they did that.
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They saw something in me.
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They made sure that I went to school away from the other boys.
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I went to school in Kingsbury.
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The others went to tough schools in Willesden and Neasden.
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Um after we'd get home, the other boys would go out and play football in the park.
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I was forced to stay home and do my homework.
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They were definitely doing their bit to keep me slightly away from the other more troublesome boys and keep me on the straight and narrow.
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So, I'd put them at the very top.
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The next one has to be my PE teacher, Brian Jones.
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Brian Jones was the one that and I and I use this word forced me to play rugby because back in 19 1970, big comprehensive school, 350 students in each year group.
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So, 170 odd boys all hoping that we could choose football cuz we were going to play football for Spurs or Arsenal.
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The Welsh PE teacher lined us up and he chose for us.
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When it was my turn, one of the smallest boys in the year but broad shoulders, he looked at me and said, "Stedman, you're playing rugby."
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I tried to argue, quickly realized this was one argument I wasn't going to win.
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So, very reluctantly, I went over to try this game rugby.
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Halfway through that first session, I fell in love with the game and I started to work harder.
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The harder I worked, the more recognition I got, the better I got.
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I got into the school team and the 80 and then captain and then the county and so on and so forth.
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But this same PE teacher came to my rescue a second time.
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Back in the the 1970s, if you were a child in care in a children's home, you had to leave when you were 16 years old and you were just put out into the wide world all by yourself.
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And and I was doing my O levels.
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It was before GCSEs, it was the O levels.
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And I said to the authorities, "I need to stay in this children's home cuz I'm going to do A levels and go off to university."
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They allowed me to stay for 1 year and so at the end of what we now call year 12, back then it would have been lower sixth, they said, "You now have to leave."
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And I pleaded and said, "I've got 1 more year to do my A levels.
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I need to stay in this children's home."
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And they said, "You leave now."
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My PE teacher approached me and said, "Floyd, I've got a big house.
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You can rent a room in my house and finish your A levels."
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Something which we could never do now, but that PE teacher saved me um, from leaving school early and he made sure that I could complete my um, A-levels.
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The third one is probably going to be the Saracens rugby committee when I was a young Saracen.
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When I was a young Saracen playing elite rugby at the time when the black players were the fast runners on the wing, give them the ball and they'll run around everyone or they were the big power forwards but they were never ever in the critical decision-making positions because the assumption back then was that the black boys weren't intelligent enough and there was me playing scrum-half, the critical decision-making position.
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And um, Saracens asked me to be captain, to be the first black captain of a major team in England and Saracens allowed me to carry on playing scrum-half.
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Quick question for the two of you, I know you know your sports quiz and trivia.
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Can either of you name another English-born black scrum-half that's played elite rugby, Premiership level rugby in the last 40 years apart from me? >> I definitely can't.
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>> That's because I don't think there has been one and one of my mantras as a headmaster is you can't be what you can't see.
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Youngsters need to see people like me being successful and hopefully inspiring them.
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>> Incredible, Floyd, incredible.
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I um, want to want to shift gears maybe now and talk a little bit about your leadership style.
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You know, our leadership of Giant I certainly take a lot from from rugby and the captaincy I had back at back at school whether it's leading from the front or you know, understanding that you know, there's certain roles on the pitch where people have decision-making abilities and different unit leaders and also I think the importance of different shapes and sizes right on a on a rugby pitch.
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A prop does not look like a wing but each have an equally important role.
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I think those are some of the lessons I took forward from rugby but I'm very curious where you shaped your leadership philosophy and what the core core tenants are.
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>> I think my leadership philosophy has been gained over years of either working with one or two outstanding people, and there's certainly two that I can think of, or watching the people that I really admired.
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And right at the top of the list of the people that I really admired has to be Nelson Mandela.
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Um you know, you've got a man that was incarcerated in prison for over 27 years.
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And when he was released in 1990, he should have been bitter and twisted.
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And when his party, the ANC, gained power, you know, you would think there's going to be retributions.
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And what he did was absolutely amazing because he understood how to pull people together.
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And that really, really impressed me.
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In terms of people that I've worked with, I've worked with a white South African, Derek Rosenberg, uh my first teaching job all the way back in 1980.
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And a lot of my friends couldn't believe that I was going to work for a white South African.
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And I had to tell them the story that this white South African's father used to hold meetings with Nelson Mandela and the ANC, and was fighting for equality in their homeland, South Africa.
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And that really, really appealed to me cuz I always fight for equality for everyone.
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So, my leadership, I think it's it's compassionate leadership, but there's a subtle thing here because when I was a young teacher, people used to say, "You will never be a headmaster, Floyd, because you're too kind."
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And I always strongly disagreed with them because people in what they thought was kindness, they didn't realize that you can be a kind person, but still a very strong and effective leader.
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Because I'm kind, I can still make very, very tough decisions, and I've made some incredibly tough decisions, and I will make them, and I won't sit on the fence.
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So, um I think it's all about compassionate leadership.
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It's also about if you're if you're a true leader, you're actually empowering other people to do their jobs effectively.
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When I was headmaster of my schools, I had people that were far better at certain aspects of the role, and I would say to them, "Right, get on and do it.
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And when I was having my senior meetings, I always said to my team, "Don't be afraid to challenge me in my office."
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Because sometimes you will have better solutions than than me.
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In my office, you challenge me, but once we've made a decision, we're a team, and when we leave my office, we will follow through with that decision.
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So, I think it's about compassionate leadership, but you mustn't be afraid to make those tough decisions, which all leaders have to make. Did that make sense?
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>> Such a powerful message, I think.
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Leadership from from a place of kindness and compassion, but with just underlying strength.
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Um I think that's just a yeah, very powerful message, particularly at this this moment in time for the world.
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Um and I'm sure I know I did, and I know my friends certainly challenged you at moments with our with our behavior.
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So, thank you for your patience there.
19:59
Uh >> But it's interesting, because you talk about the behavior, Kevin. I'm sorry to interject.
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I'm a terrible interjector, but I will interject.
20:05
But but what's interesting there is that yes, you uh and Tommy and and all of the boys at some point did things wrong, but actually, that's what children do.
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Uh do you have your own children now? >> We do.
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>> And you will know that they would sometimes get it wrong and make mistakes.
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Um and so, in in the role as a teacher and as a senior teacher, my job was to correct the mistakes.
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And as Tommy was telling the story earlier on, it's about making people aware that there are consequences for actions.
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Good actions will have resulting good consequences.
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Bad actions, poor actions will result in poor and bad consequences.
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And as a teacher, as a leader, I never ever shouted.
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And my wife, and sadly, I lost her to cancer 8 years ago, um was one of the most brilliant classroom teachers that I watched.
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She was in a tough school, state school.
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Um I never ever heard her shout.
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Always in her voice, but she had absolute control.
20:59
And more importantly, and this is what I've always worked for, she had respect.
21:04
Because you will both remember, when I was a young teacher at St.
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Paul's Juniors, I didn't want the students to like me.
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I wanted them to respect me cuz I was doing my job effectively.
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>> You know, I think about this a lot.
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The whether whether you can teach leadership, whether you can become a leader if if you're not, you know, born with it, I guess.
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And when I look back at our experiences of being taught by you and led by you, you were, as we've discussed, a quiet leader, a calm leader.
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And when you spoke quietly, people listened.
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There was just a a a respect about you.
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Partly, obviously, that was because as young kids, we we knew that you were this star rugby player outside of school.
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That obviously, you know, made us respect you.
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But I think fundamentally, you know, you and and other leaders we've come across had something innate about you, an aura, call it what you will.
21:51
And that's really hard to replicate because if you're someone else who tries to just be quiet and calm and and and people would might just ignore you.
21:58
Do do What Where do you stand on that?
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Do you think leaders are born or made?
22:04
>> I think it's a combination.
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I think some of the true leaders are definitely born.
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There's There's that innate quality that you touched on.
22:10
Um that not everyone has.
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But even an effective leader can learn from other leaders.
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You know, I learned from some very very effective leaders when I was a younger teacher.
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I watched some of the older teachers and I was I liked what A did and I really liked this is what B did and C did and I would pull it together. You know what?
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I'm going to try this as as part of my style.
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So I think it's a combination of nature and nurture.
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Some of it um you're born with, some of it you can learn and develop.
22:38
>> When we first met you as seven-year-old boys, the color of our skin or your skin is just not something you think about as children, right?
22:44
And that's sadly obviously not the case.
22:46
As people get older, you've alluded already to prejudice in in the rugby arena, where you were the first to be a a top rugby player in that decision-making position, in that case, scrum half.
22:58
Um how did racism impact your life then as a rugby player, as a teacher, headmaster, and and how's that changed over time in in British society?
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>> I think how it's changed over time is when I was a youngster growing up, there was a lot of overt racism.
23:13
And also, Tommy and Cameron, language has evolved and changed over time.
23:19
And let me give you two examples of the language.
23:20
The first is I have three delightful growing up sons that you may remember because I think it was Eddie Redmayne that taught my eldest to ride a bike when I was refereeing a match somewhere. At some pools.
23:31
Um but my three delightful growing up sons, uh white mother, black dad.
23:36
When I was a boy, they would have been referred to as half-cast.
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Which is such a derogatory term which we don't use anymore.
23:43
But then half-cast moved to mixed race.
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Mixed race moved to mixed heritage.
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And you'll now hear terms like dual heritage, people of color.
23:51
And that's just language evolving over time. Did that make sense?
23:56
Another another example of how language has evolved over time is back in the 1970s, there were three popular sitcoms that most of the population watched.
24:04
And this is a time when we only had three TV channels, BBC 1, BBC 2, and ITV.
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The sitcoms were Love Thy Neighbor, On the Buses, and Till Death Us Do Part.
24:14
If you YouTube um those and just watch some of the clips, if they're not bleeped out, the language is offensive and it's racist.
24:24
But back then, that was accepted language.
24:27
And I would go to school the morning after one of these sitcoms.
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And my school friends started to call me these awful, terrible, racist names.
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Now, that did not mean my school friends were racist.
24:37
They were just copying, they were children, they were copying the language that they'd heard and seen on television.
24:42
So, I think there was a lot of overt racism back then.
24:44
I think there's far less, but I think there's still a lot of unconscious bias.
24:49
And I think there is a subtle difference.
24:51
Now, so unconscious bias is where you just don't think it.
24:57
You know, within 5 seconds we are forming opinions about the new people that we meet.
25:02
That's the unconscious mind doing a lot of the work.
25:04
Um and what I've learned to do is when people see me, they see a black man.
25:10
When I was younger, they saw a black boy.
25:12
When I was a boy, I learned to challenge people to look beyond what they thought they saw to begin to get to know me and to understand me. Example, at St.
25:21
Paul's Juniors, I was the very first black teacher the whole of St.
25:26
Paul's had appointed in its 500-year history.
25:29
And in I only found that out after I said yes, I'd I'd accept the job.
25:34
And I had to work hard not with the students, not with your parents, but with some of my colleagues to get them to look be- beyond what they thought they saw in this black man for give to get them to really to begin to understand me, the person.
25:49
Did any of that make sense? >> Absolutely.
25:52
What was was prejudice more stark in sports or education for you, Floyd? >> Both. >> Both.
26:00
>> Uh for me, it was just both.
26:00
I mean, on the sports front, from being a teenager playing scrum-half and being told the black boys don't play there, the black boys aren't bright enough.
26:10
You should be out on the wing and that sort of thing.
26:13
Um and then, you know, playing high-level sport, I never say which team, and I know Tommy's read my book.
26:17
I do say it's a team in the West Country, and there are only four big Premiership teams in the West Country.
26:23
The first time that I I led my team out into this big stadium, there was monkey chants. It wasn't just football.
26:30
There was people spitting in my direction, shouting abuse.
26:34
The comment that still rings in my mind was actually not an abusive comment.
26:38
Someone shouted out, "Gosh, there are three of them."
26:41
Meaning that Saracens had the temerity to select three black players.
26:46
And that's why Tommy earlier I was saying about Saracens committee, they were incredibly brave to put me in that key decision-making positions and to make me captain.
26:56
That was incredibly brave of them.
26:58
>> Perhaps a sign of how far we've come in an optimistic note.
27:00
We're all very excited to watch your protege, Maro Itoje, captain the British and Irish Lions this this Saturday. It's a major moment.
27:08
Um you spotted Maro very very early.
27:12
Uh what was it that you saw in him?
27:16
>> So, I played a small part and I have to say it is a small part.
27:17
Um so, I've been um incredibly lucky.
27:20
I've been headmaster for four prep schools, uh two in London and two in Surrey.
27:23
And it was my first headship.
27:26
And from day one, I noticed this 10-year-old boy that was bigger than me.
27:32
Now, as you both know, I'm not the biggest of people, but a 10-year-old boy that was bigger than me and he was very gangly um and he was brilliant at all of the sport this school did.
27:42
Sadly, this wasn't a rugby playing school, but he played a lot of football and tennis and cricket and basketball. And Maro was brilliant.
27:50
I mean, he always had either a basketball or a tennis racket. Loved his sport.
27:56
And one day, I just went over and I said, "Maro, you're built for rugby.
27:58
You are the size that rugby players could be really effective.
28:03
You need to try rugby in your next school."
28:06
And I don't know with your own children, sometimes you might say a little comment and their eyes glaze over and you think you've lost them. Oh, here we go again.
28:13
And I thought he's not he's not listening to me. But I didn't give in.
28:17
I rang his father that evening and I said, "Mr.
28:19
Itoje, your son has the potential to be an outstanding rugby player.
28:22
In his senior school, he must play rugby and you must take him to my rugby club, Salasians.
28:26
We will look look after him."
28:28
And I'm delighted to say that certainly Mr.
28:32
Itoje senior was listening, but actually I I'd spoken to Maro a number of times.
28:36
He actually said to me, "I was listening to you, sir, and I did play rugby because of what you said to me," which is really really kind.
28:41
And as Tommy knows, Maro wrote the forward to my autobiography as well.
28:47
>> He's one of many illustrious people that you've mentored over over time.
28:49
We You mentioned Eddie Redmayne earlier on, the Oscar-winning actor.
28:53
He attributes a lot of his success in life to the impact you had, Maro Itoje, all sorts of amazing people.
29:00
Just on the Lions, what what makes the Lions so special in your view?
29:05
>> Oh my gosh, it's it's just completely unique concept of having players from four countries that are knocking six bells out of each other in the Six Nations coming together every four years to have this unique experience, the best of the best in the Northern Hemisphere, apart from France and Italy.
29:25
Um and I think when the game went pro back in 1995, people thought, "Well, that's it.
29:30
The Lions are going to to go."
29:31
Well, I think it's actually become a bigger phenomenon.
29:33
You know, with thousands and thousands, my youngest son's going over for the final test match.
29:38
So, it's just a unique concept that works so well in this in this day and age in this professional sport.
29:42
I I can see I think the Lions are going to win the first two tests.
29:49
Um I know that the Australians are holding holding some of their their strongest players back, but I watched the Australia-Fiji game.
29:55
Um and Fiji are a very, very good side, very, very good side.
29:57
But, I just think that the Lions are the next notch up.
30:02
And for Australia to win the first test match against the Lions, they should have beaten Fiji by 20 to 30 points.
30:05
So, I can see the Lions winning the first test.
30:09
I can see the Lions winning the second test, but it's such a nutritional sport, I can also see some injuries.
30:13
And then by the third test match, Australia might might nick that. >> Yeah, that's right.
30:19
That's actually my prediction as well.
30:20
As we round out this podcast, Floyd, I'd love to just ask you one more question.
30:23
What advice would you give your 10-year-old self as as you left home all those years ago, now having lived the life that you've lived?
30:34
>> Do you know, I would tell my 10-year-old self to really believe in himself and go reach for the stars and be ambitious because now that I'm at the other end of my life I'm looking back and I cannot believe what's happened particularly over the last three years.
30:52
I as you know have been awarded an OBE.
30:55
I'm a Freeman of the City of London.
30:55
I'm a Deputy Lieutenant for for Cornwall.
31:01
I've been given a special award by the Rugby Football Union.
31:02
They've only given out six of these awards.
31:06
I'm in the Saracens Hall of Fame.
31:08
When I was that 10-year-old boy on the run sleeping on the rough I didn't I didn't know what's going to happen tomorrow let alone in five or 10 years time.
31:15
So I would just say to that 10-year-old believe in yourself, be confident.
31:20
The other thing that even now I sometimes struggle is I still sometimes have imposter syndrome and I say well what am I doing here?
31:27
About a month ago I was at this stunning stunning white tie function banquet in Mansion House as a guest of the Lord Mayor of London and he sat me between His Excellency the High Commissioner of Pakistan and His Excellency the High Commissioner of Mauritania.
31:44
So I was spending half of the time talking about cricket and half of the time talking about camels but it was actually absolutely fascinating evening but halfway through I just said what am I doing here?
31:54
So I still struggle with that imposter syndrome and so the key message is believe in yourself and go for it.
32:01
>> Brilliant brilliant place to end.
32:01
Floyd it's been an absolute pleasure to do this with you.
32:04
We've both been looking forward to it for such a long time and an incredible life journey.
32:07
We're really glad to share it with the Giant Ideas listeners and viewers.
32:11
So thank you so much for joining.
32:15
>> It's been an absolute pleasure and thank you for remembering me.