John Bertrand: How Champions Spot Champions.

John Bertrand can size up a leader in under five minutes. Forty years on from breaking the longest winning streak in sporting history, he's still studying people for a living. The methods that won the America's Cup are the same ones he teaches businesses and sporting bodies that help them spot talent and build teams that win.

So what does a world champion like John Bertrand actually look for? And how does he know when he's looking at one?

Guest: John Bertrand AO, Skipper of Australia II (1983 America's Cup winner), Chairman of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

Host: Brigette McGuire, Monash Business School.

© 2026 Monash Business School

Produced by Miniature

Transcript

Brigette McGuire 0:03

Watching sport is an emotional experience. Whether you are in the arena or you're watching your favourite player face their fiercest rival, the game triggers something deeply human within us as fans, doesn't it? Our heart rate quickens as we feel the hairs stand up on the back of our neck. Will they win or will they live to fight another day? And while sport is full of emotion and drama, these days it's also data-driven and deeply commercial. In Australia alone, sport generates more than $50 billion a year. Every decision made behind the scenes now shapes how fans watch, connect with, and play the game. And how fans connect with the game in turn impacts how their favourite athletes perform and how their brands are managed. Welcome to Love the Fan. Win the Game. I'm Brigette McGuire. I've worked in sport for decades at all levels, from grassroots to global events, marketing to media coverage. I'm now leading the next generation of sports thinkers, marketers, and leaders as Associate Professor of Practice in Marketing at Monash Business School. Over my career, I've learnt that the contest can be just as competitive off the field, where executives balance growth, technology, and responsibility. They carry to fans who live and breathe the game. Each episode of this podcast goes inside those decisions. We speak with leaders who are redefining fan engagement sponsorship and the social impact of sport in this multi-billion dollar industry. My guest today understands better than anyone what it takes to redefine the game, to perform at their highest potential when it matters most on the world stage. How do the best of the best hold their nerve under immense pressure? In this episode of Love the Fan Win the Game, we're going to find out. Mr. John Bertrand A.O. is an international world champion yachtsman, a highly successful businessman and entrepreneur. He has built companies in the marine and property industries and has co-founded and launched a digital media company on the NASDAQ. Best known for leading the greatest team performance in 200 years of Australian sport, the famous America's Cup victory as Skipper of Australia 2 against the almighty power of the New York Yacht Club. He and his crew ended their 132-year-long winning streak, the longest in modern sporting history. John is a legend of the International America's Cup Hall of Fame, the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, and still competes at the highest level of international yacht racing, and no doubt loves it. Please welcome to Love the Fan Win the Game, Mr. John Bertrand.

John Bertrand 2:44

Hi, Brigette.

Brigette McGuire 2:45

Thank you for being here.

John Bertrand 2:47

Great pleasure.

Brigette McGuire 2:48

John, I want to start off with Australian sport, we need champions and we need champion teams because we know very well that Australians love to see Australians win. That's where children uh that they dream of emulating their heroes. But developing a s a champion is is not easy, is it? You know, are are champions in your mind, are they a product of of nature or nurture?

John Bertrand 3:19

Gee, that's a um that's a deep question, I would suggest. Um First of all, I've never met a world champion that's a normal person. You have to be screwed up in some manner to get out of bed each morning and do extraordinary things. It's not a normal vocation. It's not a normal person in that regard. So you know, I say screwed up with great great sense of authority too, because talking to my wife Raza, she's totally in tune with that.

Brigette McGuire 3:51

And what do you mean? What do you mean by that?

John Bertrand 3:53

Yeah, it's motivation. Okay. High level of motivation, you know, for all the different reasons in terms of the, you know, the package of resilience and uh, you know, as Ron Barrassi used to say, uh, only perfect practice makes perfect. You know, this issue of uh higher, further, and faster, like all these all these dream-building worlds of why a swimmer follows the black line and the probability of being part of the Olympic swim team is maybe half of one percent if you're really good. Uh to win the America's Cup, forget us, you know, the impossibility of it. You know, this you've got to be you've got to be crazy to follow a dream like that. Okay. So what makes these, you know, what makes uh champions, you know, the the real, the best of the best. Uh it comes in general I I first of all, let me suggest that it doesn't come from a a soft upbringing.

Brigette McGuire 4:49

Okay.

John Bertrand 4:49

Okay. Uh invariably there's uh some cases where an athlete is wanting to prove their to one of their parents that they're good enough.

Brigette McGuire 4:58

Okay.

John Bertrand 4:59

Because they never had that uh feedback when they're a kid, for example.

Brigette McGuire 5:03

So when you say soft or uh very nurturing Yes, yeah. Correct, you know.

John Bertrand 5:08

And of course you know, the the modern world where in do all we want is our children to be happy, whatever that word means to those, you know, to the kids. And happiness in a lot a lot of cases doesn't come from being a helicopter parent. It comes from allowing the child to make mistakes and to fall over and to pick themselves up and to break an arm or whatever, and life goes on. Okay. And the you know, little kids' bodies heal fast anyway, so as long as they don't die, not a problem. Uh so you look at these kids who are coming through the pipeline, like you know, the world is tennis, which you intimately know, and these kids from all around the world are s in particular sent to uh US or Spanish tennis camps. The parents are generally highly driven because they've sold everything to support these kids. So you that type of ecosystem is different to the norm. Would I suggest that that's something I'd recommend to every family? No. Why not? You know, it's a tricky one. However, when you put it all aside, the thing the the people that pop out of the system that become world champions or whatever, Olympic champions, are really interesting characters and and generally very complex. You look at someone like Federer, for example, you know, you're the nicest guy and just below the surface, an absolute mongrel of a competitor, you know. Um, has that answered the question? Not particularly, but I I'm suggesting that's a complex it's a complex background.

Brigette McGuire 6:39

And maybe it's not neither, you know, born or bred, it's it's a combination of both and the environment is very important.

John Bertrand 6:46

You know, I had a terrific upbringing. My mum and dad was a happy marriage. Yes. Dad died when I was f fifteen, he was fifty years old, lung cancer. Right. Uh we didn't have enough money for the funeral. So we just have money there. So what what was my motivation? One, I was intrigued with water and we lived we you've got to have luck in life. So we'd as it turns out, we were born well, we grew up on the beach at Chelsea outside of Melbourne. And we'd muck around with boats in summertime and play football in winter and try and do a bit of schoolwork in between. Okay.

Brigette McGuire 7:19

So very active, very active, back in the day, lots of outdoor activity.

John Bertrand 7:24

But then when I went to Monash University from Mordialic Chelsea High School, I came across these people who came from well-to-do families who had connections, Melbourne grammar and Scotch and so on. And I felt excluded from that world. Okay. And looking back on it, part of my motivation being screwed up, you know, by definition, was I want to prove to these people that I could do something. So it's really interesting. You know, my background, from a soft, beautiful, loving background, to develop a chip on my shoulder to show these people that I could do something that beyond what they could ever buy by their, you know, very wealthy parents. And there's many other elements to it, uh, you know. So and I you know, Karen Perkins, for example, you know, I know very well, and and Thorpey and and these characters, you know, they all have from different backgrounds. But high-end sport, high-end achievement requires over and above a normal environment.

Brigette McGuire 8:32

To to enable the the athlete to to thrive and do what they need to.

John Bertrand 8:37

And to hire further and faster.

Brigette McGuire 8:41

To do that it takes a lot of confidence, John. Yes. When did you know you were really good at your sport?

John Bertrand 8:51

Um when I um when I got to the United States. The Americans are highly competitive people. And um yeah, so in high five you know the competitive environment, the the um intensity, highly educated, generally highly educated uh country across the board. And um money is everything. Unlike the U Europe or England where it's h where you're born, how you're born. Uh royalty, it's a different type of thing. That's a money can't buy environment. Um and the US taught me that uh you either become strong or you die.

Brigette McGuire 9:41

Yeah.

John Bertrand 9:41

And I was uh then I was competing at the Olympic Games as well. Um and uh you know, living on the smell of an aura and competing against these guys and East Germans and Russians and so on. And I've it became clear to me that I could I could match it with the world's best if I had enough going for me. Yeah.

Brigette McGuire 10:01

And even before you got to that world's best level, when you're growing up in in Chelsea, was there a time or you know, when did when did you realize that, you know, I'm I'm pretty good at this. I'm moving through state level, national, local level. You know, how did how did that you know what?

John Bertrand 10:17

It really didn't occur to me very much to tracking it. I just loved first of all, I was too competitive when I was a kid and I I didn't like competition. I became too nervous, quite ill, sick.

Brigette McGuire 10:30

Really?

John Bertrand 10:30

Yeah, yeah. I can still smell the cut grass at Chelsea State School before, you know, the hundred-yard dash. Sprinter. Performance anxiety was exactly and I think and I'm feeling quite nausea. I can still feel it and smell it when I was like eight years old, for God's sake. Okay. It was only until I was getting fourteen or fifteen years old I started to be interested in the concept of competition in sailboats sailing in sailing. And then I started to become comfortable with the smell of gunpowder.

Brigette McGuire 11:02

Right.

John Bertrand 11:02

Okay.

Brigette McGuire 11:04

That it was being shot in the air, not at you. That's it. That's it. So was that around you know, you really wanted to do well, but you didn't want to lose? Was it of you know, what was what was that to you?

John Bertrand 11:15

No, it's uh this concept of chasing perfection.

Brigette McGuire 11:17

Okay.

John Bertrand 11:18

I loved it.

Brigette McGuire 11:19

Okay.

John Bertrand 11:20

I loved the c the feeling of looking at the way birds fly through the air and had no knowledge of how they do it and we can't. And I always one aspect of my sp you know, my profile is I'm very, very curious. Yes. And um and so I looked at all of this, you know, Mother Nature in particular, with awe of how little we know and how far advanced millions of years of evolution is relative to our mind when we're born and we You know, most children when they're young, they're asking questions. Yeah, we've got a five-year-old grandchild, for example, and she said, now Pops, why is the sky blue? You know, good question. If we had four legs instead of two legs, this is one of the questions coming up the other day. Could we run faster?

Brigette McGuire 12:10

I don't know. You're an engineer. What do you think? I don't know.

John Bertrand 12:13

I'm trying to I'll research on behalf of uh of Stella, our granddaughter. Why can't we fly like a bird? Okay. Beautiful stuff. When kids get to 13, 14 years old, typically they start they stop asking questions, they lose the sense of curiosity and they start talking about themselves. And that's when generally people flatline compared to being open and uh interested and interesting, you know. And uh from my perspective, I tell people, you know, if any advice I can give them, curiosity.

Brigette McGuire 12:47

Yeah, absolutely.

John Bertrand 12:48

Keep that going, or t to the day that you die. You know, absolutely. Because without curiosity, without asking questions, and without reading, uh you one can never improve.

Brigette McGuire 12:57

Yes. You don't know. You don't know what you don't know. Now your curiosity, it would be remiss of me, John. We're here at Monash Business School, of course. And just like every part of your life, you're a super overachiever, as you were as a student here as well. And I understand you have an honours degree, you graduated with honours and a bachelor of of engineering here at here at Monash. But you were more curious again, and then you won a scholarship to the prestigious MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where where the the brains of the world are are there. I'm really interested in your work there because you really threw yourself into your studies. But there was a motivation behind your studies, let's be honest. It wasn't just to get a thesis, was it? You know, tell me what was the the title of your thesis?

John Bertrand 13:50

Uh well uh uh the just going back to Monash. Yes. The title of the thesis there, which topped the university. And I was an average student. Yeah, I was an average student. The the um uh optimum angle of attack of of America's Cup sales.

Brigette McGuire 14:10

So you're certainly a student of your game.

John Bertrand 14:12

Oh god, yeah. And I remember l being in the car park at they weren't talking about a long time ago, you know, the late uh sixties. Uh yeah, 69, in the car park, raining, mud everywhere, you know, about midnight, still going through the lifting line theory that was required for this thesis. And again, you've got to have luck. My coordinating professor is a c was Professor Bill Melbourne, and he excited me with the idea of fluids and so on. Anyway, so the uh optimum angle of attack of America's Cup sales, and that sort of got me at MIT in Boston. And that was really th that particular thesis was um control systems for high-speed uh underwater torpedo development, okay? Um, which was f much further advanced in that space. But it was all really uh, you know, my takeaway at MIT, the best way I could describe it is you know, and things uh changed, I know. But um tertiary education here in Australia, you'd have morning and afternoon tea, right? And in the US, if you had a donate on the way through at lunch, you're you're lucky.

Brigette McGuire 15:17

Right.

John Bertrand 15:18

And everything was first name, no professor this or whatever. And uh it was high velocity.

Brigette McGuire 15:24

Okay.

John Bertrand 15:24

Yeah. And MIT, about sixty or seventy percent of their revenue comes from US military contracts. Right. So it's a different world and uh the style of people that were working, you know, through Silicon Valley type thinking. Yeah. It's a different world altogether. So the Americans I have great respect for the US. Yeah.

Brigette McGuire 15:43

Yes. Yeah. I have to ask, I'm a chief examiner now in in my unit, sports marketing and sponsorship here at uh Monash Business School. So I need to know, did you get a good mark for your thesis? Because I I I think it has to be one of the most successfully applied pieces of sporting research.

John Bertrand 16:01

Yeah. You mean here in the at Monash? Or across the MIT. MIT. You know what? I sped it up so that I could compete uh in this trials for the Olympic Games, '72. And I got a it was a uh uh uh honours, you know, uh degree. It was a Master of Science at at MIT. But I don't even know what I got. I wasn't uh I passed and I was gone. Back to Australia to, as it turns out, win the trials and go to Germany for the Olympic Games.

Brigette McGuire 16:30

Amazing.

John Bertrand 16:30

So I was on amazing story.

Brigette McGuire 16:33

And isn't that interesting? So that that must have been a fascinating life as a student athlete. Yes. Um now so many Australians uh go to the US, both of my sons have to to play US college. There you go. I've always been fascinated. I th I think it's such a great opportunity if you can pursue your sporting ability. But marry that with your education as well. Yeah. And at the end of the day, your sport will take you'll take it where you need to take it. But if you walk away with an education, if you get that degree, you're then setting yourself up for more opportunities rather than taking them away. What are what are your thoughts on that, John? You know, there'll be we'll have listeners who are who are sports parents, we'll have young young athletes who will be considering, do I go down the professional path immediately? You know, when you're thinking about mid-teen, do I finish school? Do I do homeschooling? Do you have any, you know, you've worked, you've you've led swimming Australia, you you've seen so much in in the high performance landscape from Australia. It's, you know, it's it's challenging as well because we're so far away from a lot of the international competition for such a long period of the year. What are what are your thoughts? What advice would you give?

John Bertrand 17:49

My mother, a very, very strong woman, as uh I think I mentioned my dad died when I was 50, when he was fifty. Mum took over. We had no money, we didn't have enough money for the funeral, so we're broke. And she then repositioned our soft toy manufacturing company and she built a business. It was just fantastic. She was adamant that both myself and my brother get a degree. She didn't care what. She said, I don't care whether you're the garbage man, you're gonna have a degree. Okay. And um she was adamant about that. Uh she didn't have any formal background herself, but she was smart. And I I look, you know, from my perspective, looking back, and we've you know spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley, launched the company on Nasdaq and the whole thing, it's done a lot of stuff, I have. And um I I tell people, you know, and they approach me regarding their sporting background and so on, just get a degree because the fact is it's a it's important to be able to fall back. And then what do you learn from university? Generally you learn to think. That's probably the biggest thing. And you know where to go to find further information and knowledge.

Brigette McGuire 18:57

And quality information and knowledge. Absolutely.

John Bertrand 19:00

Well, that's uh in this modern era, absolutely it's true, yeah. And have the confidence to be able to navigate in that regard. So, regardless of whether you know a young person is wanting to become a world champion or not, for example, with the Australian swimming program, twenty years ago about thirty percent of uh of uh athletes embarked on tertiary education. Now it's more like 80%. Okay? Now it's a pragmatic th scenario, and the coaches now encouraging that. Whereas before they said, if you're going to become an Olympic athlete, you have to be full-time with your mentality. Yes. The reality now, and we know that within sport here in Australia as well, if someone has a outside interest, in other words, education for their own betterment, then that's good for their performance as well. You know, there's nothing worse than a a young person sitting at home playing video games in between training sessions and so on, compared to being productive and feeling good about it. So we know just from a pragmatic point of view, whilst the athlete is in training, that b being involved in tertiary education, in other words, getting a degree, going to Ford and that, is extremely important. And then if it doesn't work out, such that professionalism and there's only a few people ever make a real dollar out of professional sport. The fact is, if it doesn't work out, then they can fall back and find an area where they can become passionately involved. In other words, a career. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Brigette McGuire 20:24

And you never lose those incredible skills of being a an athlete. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

John Bertrand 20:28

Well, that's the beautiful thing. You know, the We lost a lot of kids, you know, with the particularly with the swimming, you know, they were burnt out and uh swimming astralia, we never followed up properly. And they really didn't k they didn't want to c have anything to do with the sport until maybe years later. And now we're you know, swimming astronaut is much better than following up and you know bringing these people who've put so much t work into it to keep within the tribe. Okay. But the reality is that uh you know, you just need you know, that that tertiary education and combined with intense training is absolutely a fantastic combination. Fantastic. The life's lessons win or lose, or whether you make it on the world stage or not, the life's lessons from the training regime and working with high-end good people is unbelievable apprenticeship for life.

Brigette McGuire 21:20

So is it the discipline, John? Is it is it waking up, is it turning up when you don't feel like it's getting out of bed you know, at five o'clock in the morning.

John Bertrand 21:29

It's just doing stuff, you know, pushing your body to the point where you you know you think you're gonna die. The fact is not many people in training die, I can tell you that. Otherwise, you know it wouldn't be very good. It wouldn't be good for the marketing of sport participation. No. And it's this really whole issue of, you know, people giving at their best. Yeah. Pushing hard. Um and understanding what they're capable of.

Brigette McGuire 21:53

It's a beautiful environment, yeah.

John Bertrand 21:55

Yeah.

Brigette McGuire 21:55

The last thing um I want to touch on in that, John, is it it's Been really pleasing for me to be teaching this course and working working with young Australians here and a lot of international students, which really broadens the discussion in class. So it's just great. It's great. And they they don't know about AFL and suddenly they're opening their minds to that. But I've had AFL footballers in the class, I've had Olympians in the class. And often they are just very discreet. And in the classroom, they're just John and Brigette. They're not out on the street or within their clubs or within their sports, they're an athlete or they're a high performance athlete. But in the classroom, they can actually just be themselves. And they're there as a student to collaborate, get their assignments done, their group assignments, their their presentation. Again, just finishing rounding that conversation off, how important is it for an athlete when you're so you have to be obsessed to achieve it at the highest level, just to be part of a group in a more normalized environment to balance that out?

John Bertrand 23:04

Well, as as as human animals, tribal environment is just is is everything, you know, compared to being a loner. But let me just reflect a little bit further on that. The higher you go in terms of sport, for example, you know, it's just you know this concentrated environment, uh, the less dickheads there are.

Brigette McGuire 23:21

Okay.

John Bertrand 23:22

Yeah.

Brigette McGuire 23:22

Tell me more.

John Bertrand 23:24

Okay, so uh the the world champions are good people. If you're a dickhead, and we're now talking about the all blacks. Right. The all blacks say no dickheads. The number one, if you're talking about their priorities, number one is uh no dickheads. Number two, can you play football?

Brigette McGuire 23:44

So it's attitude attitude first.

John Bertrand 23:47

Well, attitude and also the ability to attract people to help you.

Brigette McGuire 23:52

Okay.

John Bertrand 23:53

A definition of a dickhead is a person, a non-dickhead, okay. If if there's such a word, probably not. Is someone who who attracts people to help them.

Brigette McGuire 24:06

Okay.

John Bertrand 24:06

Okay. So you at the very, very highest level, these people have a a you know, a group of people for the right reasons wanting to support that person because they're good people to hang out with. Right. Okay. And uh so we see it, you know. So I you know, I'm chairman of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, which represents all the sports of this country. It's unique globally. It's an amazing organization.

Brigette McGuire 24:29

It's the it's the pinnacle, it's the membership that any athlete aspires to become part of.

John Bertrand 24:35

In this country, one can go no higher. Okay, it is the best of the best. And um all the people we induct are beautiful people. And the reason that they're so good is because the s the profile that they are, okay? The who they are. And uh, you know, you and then you you you get, you know, people talking about uh uh uh outsiders talking about these individuals, they love them. Okay.

Brigette McGuire 25:01

Yeah.

John Bertrand 25:02

So, you know, the best of the best is just a uh it's it's an interesting case study of human profiling.

Brigette McGuire 25:09

Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you. I think that's great advice for for anyone who's who's listening who has an athlete in the family, or you know, parents, you know, are families are so involved with their young athletes coming through just to the importance of education and having you know a good tribe, tribe around you. Um I wanted to, of course, I I can't not talk about the race. And I've been loving watching the the next the Netflix documentary, Untold the Race of the Century, and I highly recommend it to our listeners who are yet to see it. It it is such an incredible story, and and to be honest, John, I don't think, you know, whether it's Steven Spielberg or whoever the Hollywood director could actually come up with a story of that level of creativity, of drama, far less the cast that was in in that moment. What do you think of that? Would you agree?

John Bertrand 26:13

I agree. Yeah. For God's sake, you know, when you look at it, it's very hard act to follow. It's one of those things. So I guess the question is why? Why was it such a big deal? And most of the uh listeners or people on this, you know, that on the video probably were not born. Uh when we crossed the line uh, you know, over forty years ago. Well, the America's Cup started off before the US Civil War, and the Americans dominated the event f for 132 years until we came along with our seventh challenge. We'd lost six times before with people like Frank Packer, so Frank Packer and Alan Bond and so on.

Brigette McGuire 26:51

So the big tycoons of Australian business were the ones who got behind and bankrolled the right attempts, yeah.

John Bertrand 27:00

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Uh why it you know it's thought it was the Everest of sport in many ways. And of course taking on the United States uh always a big deal. But uh looking back on it, it's transfixed the nation. We were halfway around the world, so we only hear the stories now, okay? Because we're in Newport, Rhode Island when we were involved with the racing. But we the country was going through a tough recession. We're talking about 1983, tough uh droughts and floods. So the country was was back to the, you know, our backs were to the wall. And we came back from the dead at three, one down. We had to win three consecutive races to actually do it.

Brigette McGuire 27:39

Can I just can I just hold you there? Because you know, at that moment, you that breakfast that morning, you th you three one one down, and as you said, the ice the champagne was on ice at the New York Yacht Club. Dennis Connor, Liberty, they're feeling pretty confident about things. And I understand morale at breakfast wasn't so great for you and you and the crew, but you had a a message from from a fan from Australia that that had an impact. And I'm wondering when you're facing the depths of defeat right in the face, and there's nowhere to hide, how important is it to receive a message from from a fan? And I'd love you to share.

John Bertrand 28:24

Yeah, well the fan was the Prime Minister of the country at the time, Bob Hawke, and he sent a video uh message across, which was very cool. You know, the country's behind you, we'll we'll blow if necessary, John, you know, all of this stuff. And as as as Bob Hawke could, you know, he's he's one of the great or gr great communicators I've ever come across. And I've met a lot of people around the world ever since, you know. But he was just remarkable. And so he's able to capture the moment, you know, seemingly uh at ease. It's fantastic. You know, that's part of leadership, incidentally. Yes. Yeah, communication. And uh so how important was it? It was important, um, but the picture was much bigger than that. Of course. Yeah. And the question is, how do we how do we move into a level of calmness so that we could endeavor to make the right decisions at the right time under extreme pressure, which is what we had.

Brigette McGuire 29:17

How did you do it? That's the million-dollar question.

John Bertrand 29:20

Yeah. How do we do it?

Brigette McGuire 29:23

Yeah.

John Bertrand 29:24

Possibly the most important uh communication at that stage was to get rid of the consequences of winning or losing out of our minds. Okay. Okay. The consequence of winning and coming back. Well, first of all, we had to win three consecutive races, three separate days, each race about four hours long.

Brigette McGuire 29:42

And by this stage, how many races in the challenge series then to win the right to race against Liberty? You'd already raced. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

John Bertrand 29:48

We're competing for five months. Right. It's a long campaign. And uh we had about fifty-five races against the uh non-American contenders, and we eventually won, got moved through and won that selection series.

Brigette McGuire 30:05

It's almost like a footy season that Europe. Sure is. Yeah. Yes.

John Bertrand 30:08

Right. But to put it in context, the team had basically four days off in five months.

Brigette McGuire 30:15

Really?

John Bertrand 30:16

Yeah. The working in the on the boats. Because we lack of you know, the budgets were relative was very small relative to what they are now. And uh, you know, seven days a week, not it's not recommended. But it was, you know, it was it was war. That's that was the only way you could describe it in terms of the commitment and the focus and so on. So the m the main communication, and this ri this you know, it's really important in life anyway, when you're going for exams or whatever, the consequences of winning or losing, it's irrelevant to what you've got to do, and that is to perform and to, you know, make the right decisions at the right time, which I keep saying. And uh primarily the you know, the um for us to be to be a winner and be a national hero, we it was hard to think about that, and to be a loser and not want to come back to Australia because people would say, Why did you do this or why didn't you attack then? equally as as uh you know over the top. And uh that was extremely important for you know for us. And I remember talking to you know to the team at one stage and uh and I you know in my in my zany manner of thinking, I said, now you're on the back of an eagle, boys. And of course everyone looks at me a bit strange. Of course, let me suggest that's interesting. Yeah. Everyone's been on the back of an eagle, is that right? Okay, we're a thousand not recently, but so in the old world, we're a thousand feet in the air. And this is my thinking. And when Australia 2 is going through the water, a boat, uh, it has a bowel wave and a stern wave, okay? That's just the reality of a boat going through the water. And uh the bowel wave and the stern wave is drag, okay, parasitic drag. Okay. And I s I said to the boys, uh, you're on the back of the vehicle, you've got a big scissors, okay, as you as you're going along. And you you go down and you snip off the bow wave and the stern wave. This is my crazy thinking. Okay. But visual thinking. And you get rid of the drag. And release the beast. Release our potential.

Brigette McGuire 32:22

Release the beast. I love that.

John Bertrand 32:24

Yeah. Release the beast. And and the consequences of winning or losing has nothing to do with you riding the eagle. All we're interested in is that boat to go faster and to be positioned correctly. Okay. And that was the thinking. So I had, you know, these kind of crazy stories, which they've the they loved. Yes. Jesus, he's the we've we'll we've lost him now. But this sort of thing is so getting rid of the very simple, getting rid of the consequences of winning or losing. And that's life. If something comes up a big deal, okay, the question is, okay, if I s close that deal or if I win, you know, get A's, whatever I've got to do to get there. It has nothing to do with you actually performing when it really counts. Okay. So how do we win? Uh it was a philosophy, okay, we just keep, you know, going for this thing, and then eventually we'll see the light of day, maybe. They'll keep asking us to come back, and when they tell us that there's no more racing, we'll go home and but before that we'll count the score. We'll count the score. But up until then we won't count the score.

Brigette McGuire 33:29

Okay. So was it a mindset of if we get everything the way that we need to, and we perform the way that we need to, that the score will take care of itself. Absolutely. Okay.

John Bertrand 33:41

Very simple.

Brigette McGuire 33:42

Okay. I'm really fascinated. I love obviously sports psychology and the thinking and strategy that goes goes into it. And clearly, you know, this seems you seem to have been ahead of the average, yeah, which is why you're able to take this team along. And I I understand the famous, you know, psychologist Edward De Bono, who who coined the phrase lateral thinking, actually observed your team dynamics and and had some thoughts on how the team came together.

John Bertrand 34:15

Can you share with us what his thinking was there? And Ed, we became good friends after America's Cup. Yeah, he used to come to Australia for a lecture series and he'd come and we'd have dinner, Rouse and myself, and he and his assistant. And he's a crazy. Is he? You know what? You've got to be crazy. If you if you're not crazy, don't worry about it. If you aren't crazy, good on you. Okay. That's the reality.

Brigette McGuire 34:39

So crazy is is fine. Is is being different, is going after what you need to do.

John Bertrand 34:44

Steve Jobs.

Brigette McGuire 34:45

Okay.

John Bertrand 34:46

You've got to have crazy you've got to have crazy in you. And you've got to hang out with crazies. People outside the box at D Bono. You know, he coined the phrase lateral thinking. It's now generic. That came from De Bono. And the interesting thing with with Ed DeBono is he wrote a book called The Six Hats of Thinking. And that was a game changer for us when we thought about it. And that is that for the real breakthroughs of mankind, engineering, Trans Siberian Railway, or the stealth technology coming out of Seattle, the Skunkworks, uh Lockheed, you know, the highly secret stuff. Generally, these breakthroughs come from up to about six people. Okay. And when we look at us as humans, we actually have families of mum, dad, and kids, right? That's that's the family unit. And then beyond that, you have groups of families. It's called a tribe. Okay, that's who we are. We like hanging out with tribes. But the family unit is key for us. You know, we're growing up and hopefully you have a a mum and a dad where are good in terms of you know mentoring or whatever, but not necessarily all the time. Anyway, so with with the um with the six hats of thinking, it became when Ed sort of researched it. If you have a group of people who have trust in that organization, a trust, there's a vision, that's an exciting vision, okay, and they are all the same, nothing gets done in terms of profile. The breakthrough is having six different styles of people. And that's where the so-called six hats comes from. So there's the white hat, he's the person, he's the chairperson, he's the one who endeavors to empower the people, the other five people, okay? No no idea is silly. We'll just park it for a while, perhaps, right? You have the green hat, who is the crazy, use the Ben Lexon in the terms of the America's Cup, out there for every ten ideas. Hey, maybe two could be really interesting. We'll park at the other eight. But maybe we for now. Yeah, we just explore the two. Okay. You have the black hat. We don't have the money, we don't have the time. You've got to have these checks and balances. You know, he's the doomsday. The judgment. Yeah, you know, that's the reality check. Otherwise, you go off into, you know, everyone becomes a space cadet, you know, with these ideas. Then you have the yellow hat. No, please, John, no more meetings. Just tell me what to do and I'll get that shit done. All right. The complete a finisher, the yellow hat, the completer finisher. Right. All right. So these different types of people around the you know, the so-called uh table can create amazing stuff. And that's where the breakthroughs come from. So when we looked at the combination of our America's Cup team, it became clear to us what one, we needed different styles of people. If I was in just hiring people like myself, it'd be dull and boring relative to what can be done, you know, with crazies and yellow hats and someone getting stuff done or whatever. So we were very much tuned into again having one, encouraging different styles of people to be involved instead of having a monolithic type of uh thought process. And that that was that was De Bono, the the lateral thinking man.

Brigette McGuire 38:05

Yeah.

John Bertrand 38:05

He figured that there's four types of education. There's reading, writing, and arithmetic. Three. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and the fourth one is thinking. Thinking. And that is instead of and part of our education, you know, challenge, an education system is we're taught to, in my opinion, taught to think inside a box.

Brigette McGuire 38:28

Okay.

John Bertrand 38:29

And I remember being at MIT over in Boston, and the professor at one stage uh I was involved with an advanced mathematics course, which I didn't know what in the hell I was doing, but I was involved, you know. And he said, John, until you put a problem into numbers, you'll never be able to solve it. And it became clear to me that no, that's not the case. Uh working with people like um Ben Lixon and Alan Bond, you know, way out there people, the concept of intuition is really, really powerful. Now, where does intuition come from? It's basically if you're a student of a subject, whether it's property development or yacht racing or sports.

Brigette McGuire 39:08

Sport marketing.

John Bertrand 39:10

Sports marketing. Yep. If you become a student of that, you become very, very good because you love what you're doing. You're passionately involved, right? And if you, you know, they talk about the 10,000 hours of perfect practice. It's a very interesting concept. The fact is if you build up that knowledge base, then you can make this people make decisions which are pretty high level of being right via this thing called intuition. And we're seeing that in the sports world where you've got these athletes doing amazing stuff and they wouldn't know how they did it. You know, this in particular AFL, for example. We have this guy, this old guy, he's 38 years old, a guy called Scott Pendlebury, and he looks old, slow, okay. My God, he still performs at a very high level because he's got all that intuitive feel, and he would wouldn't know how he conducts himself in many ways, because it's micro decision making, micro second decision making. It's the same in terms of, you know, in terms of your world, the sports marketing area. People who are passionately involved in, you know, the so-called 10,000 hours of perfect practice or 10,000 hours of perfect thinking, then indeed you react to something and it become quite intuitive. Women have got a much better power of intuition than men, on the average. My wife Rasa, who does not suffer fools, she's amazing. We've been married for over 55 years for God, and she's been through more crap in her life than you could imagine.

Brigette McGuire 40:36

Raza is an amazing woman, and I also should add a proud alumna of Monash University as well.

John Bertrand 40:42

Oh God. So you talk about curiosity. She was 74 years old and she graduated from Monash University with a master of uh arts degree. We're all there. Yes, yes, yes. And uh her ability to sum up people is so much more rapid than me. You know, I come back starry, I think that person's just terrific, and Raza's home. Don't go near him, John. Invariably Raza's right.

Brigette McGuire 41:06

So there's from what I'm hearing, what I'm what I'm hearing from you, John, is is that it can't all be data drift, that there is it's there's science, of course, but there's art involved as well.

John Bertrand 41:18

If if art if intuition intuition is called art, then that's fine, yeah. Okay. Yeah. But it's allow allowing yourself to back your judgment in many ways.

Brigette McGuire 41:28

Okay. And that comes from experience, it comes from curiosity.

John Bertrand 41:31

So Alan Bond, who, you know, is a very interesting character, you said, John, an a definition of an entrepreneur is one who can take 30% of the data and make a correct decision. Right. Most people need 90% of the data to make a decision. Now, why this entrepreneur, entrepreneur in that space. So Alan loved property and he had that s so-called sixth sense to be able to make a decision rapidly. And invariably he built amazing, you know, and of course it collapsed because he was all or nothing. He was like a kid in a candy store, if you know, in terms of of credit ratings. But the fact is, is that uh people who love the subject, okay, uh can then start to back their judgment more and more without microanalyzing why it is so.

Brigette McGuire 42:22

So that judgment, that fear of failure, those are the barriers start to just melt away. Yeah.

John Bertrand 42:28

Yeah. So it's interesting decision making, isn't it? Isn't it? Yeah, yeah. So your students, you know, in terms of following sports marketing and so on, if these kids, if these students start to really get involved in this, and not just your own lectures and presentations, but start researching it because they love this stuff. Um, you know, I mentioned a podcast which is really interesting, 'Acquired', okay. Uh I'd suggest students really have a listen to this.

Brigette McGuire 42:54

After they've listened to this one first, John, of course.

John Bertrand 42:58

Yes. But uh it's all about searching the world for knowledge and interesting, you know, ways of doing stuff. Yeah.

Brigette McGuire 43:05

Yeah, absolutely. No, and and that's the that's the great thing, is is that they're they're really engaged with the subject matter. They can touch it, they can feel it, you know, that makes makes the teaching experience.

John Bertrand 43:17

Well then the feedback fabulous.

Brigette McGuire 43:19

Yeah, yeah, and it's and it's fun to teach as well when you when you're teaching something that that you love. I just wanted to touch on Rasa, because Raza made an interesting comment that she talked about one of one of your key strengths, of course, you have many, and I know Raza would would say that, of course, was your ability to remove distractions to focus. When you're in leadership positions in a sporting organization or leading a sporting team, how important is that? Because as we know, when you work in sport, everybody, every fan is passionate, everybody's a marketer, people will have ideas, suggestions, this person needs to be dropped, you know, selection, we should. Be talking to this sponsor or this TV deal or there's something happening at board level or the CEO, the relationships are breaking down, whatever it may be, there's lots and lots of noise. And of course, the media thrives on that sport is the story that keeps on giving. How do you move forward? How do you then focus on what needs to be done? How do you how do you prioritize when all of this noise is around you?

John Bertrand 44:26

Well, I think it's being aware that noise is part and parcel of the space that you're in. And you don't have to uh you know, don't have to get sucked into that space. And the question is, uh organizing the priorities. In other words, what's it most what's most important, what needs to be done, and ticking it off each to each way, but being aware of your surroundings as well, you know, not not going down a tunnel that you're and you're totally oblivious to what's happening around you. But it's really having confidence, my opinion, of being able to get on with the job. Okay, you know you're in the inner sanctum, you're right, you're basically uh, you know, for example, running the show, whatever. It's a matter of just getting the stuff done at in the level of priority that's required, oblivious to what's happening around you. So uh that requires a level of confidence and competence, there's no question about it. Uh, but getting on with life, and then the consequences of winning or losing are irrelevant to the outcome.

Brigette McGuire 45:24

Exactly.

John Bertrand 45:25

It's like cancer. The consequences of winning or losing in one's mind when the pressure's on is like cancer. Relative to just getting this stuff done. Yeah.

Brigette McGuire 45:37

So it be can can become inertia in thinking and damaging and negative. Terrible. Yeah, okay.

John Bertrand 45:44

Terrible.

Brigette McGuire 45:44

So in in Australia, we are we are we're the home of sport. We're so lucky to have so many major sporting events, our leagues, you know. And you can you can choose whatever sport you wish to play. But it's not actually necessarily translating into people being healthy or competing or young kids are dropping out before preteen, you know, that that drop-off is used to be around 14 and 15. That is that is lessening, you know, it's becoming younger and younger. And one of the factors is that um, you know, children are going into sport at a at a younger age, into organized sport. From your time at at Swimming Australia, John, and and your observation and and working across across sports, do you do you have any thoughts on how we can shift that needle? If if you're a sports marketer within a national sporting organization, you know, of course we want the best of the best because the children aspire to be those champions. But but how do we keep kids in the game long enough so that they can keep going and make sport a part of their their lifestyle so that we we become healthier and and happier because we know that that that that is what sport gives you in life. There's so much more to it than than just playing the game itself.

John Bertrand 46:56

Yeah. So it's a it's a perennial global problem, you know, kids getting involved in organized sport, overcoaching is part and parcel. So really interesting case study in Norway why they've been one of the most successful Winter Olympics uh nations in the world.

Brigette McGuire 47:13

Haven't they? For such a s small population, I think it's the same as four million people.

John Bertrand 47:17

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And they've dominate. Okay. And they they're proud to basically say that they don't uh there's no such thing as winning or losing until a kid is maybe ten or eleven years old. It's all about having fun, being participating and having fun. And then one can start to move into you know counting results. But it's this early stage development and evolution of young people to enjoy and love what they're doing. Okay? And it's called play. And play is play. You know, we play a game. Uh we play a game of football, we play a game of uh tennis or whatever, but in the early stages, playing is playing.

Brigette McGuire 47:58

So how do we change that culturally? Because we know I've lived it as a as a as a sporting mum, if you like. And and uh you know, you can see that when sports have tried to remove perhaps the the league ladder, for example, or they've looked at adapting the scoring so that it's not becoming such an issue. There's usually, as we know, with any change, there's a there's a backlash. That's not the way it should be it should be done. But the objective is to to keep kids in the game and and to enable them to play in a sporting context.

John Bertrand 48:35

Well I think I think it's an age dis uh you know scenario where kids are younger and it's basically the parents backing off. So for example, the most successful sailing boat in the world is an Optimus class. It's a it's the junior the junior training boat in the world, and they have a uh hundred meter rule at the World Championships. The parents are not allowed to go any closer than a hundred meters to the kids. So what happens? The kid rigs his own boat, okay, and in addition to that, he starts to become friends of his competitors from all of other nations around the world, and they start to become long lifelong friends. And they look forward to going to these major regattas because the parents are not allowed to get close to them. It's really interesting. Very interesting. Yeah, yeah. Now they have coaches and God knows what, and that's all part and parcel. But in the early days, the question is how do you stop burnout? And that's really what we're talking about here. And that is the for the my opinion, for the parents to back off and allow the kids to have fun to play. And if they want to go racing, fine. But if they want to play in with a boat, then even better. So uh I I still am passionately involved and love the sport of sailing. Okay. And but I've never been coached.

Brigette McGuire 49:53

Really?

John Bertrand 49:53

Never.

Brigette McGuire 49:54

You've never had a coach? No. So what does that say?

John Bertrand 49:58

It just means I haven't been burnt out.

Brigette McGuire 50:00

Okay.

John Bertrand 50:01

Okay. Now, uh look, I this is quite different because I'm you know, in the early days there was no coaching anyway, and no money for coaching. Like even the first uh both Olympics, 72 and 76, we had no coaching. But putting that aside, it's this whole burnout issue, okay, and no response. We want our kids to do well, and therefore, you know, coaches are brought in and professional coaches and so on and so forth. But that's really a killer in many ways. It's it's people having fun. It's the kids hanging around, playing. It's called play.

Brigette McGuire 50:32

And of course, the system doesn't help either. You know, once once children then become devoted, there, you know, there's there's a lot of time that the family, whether it's swimming or or or rowing at the crack of dawn, to other sports that's in the evening and so forth, it really starts to impact on on the family dynamic and the cost that's involved of elite sport as well, can also add to family, yes, family pressures. And then as you go up the sporting pyramid, of course, the opportunities become less and less for access to teams to go and have that international experience and and so forth. So is there something that and that's human nature as well, then comes into it. If your child may may or may not be getting selected, then perhaps behaviors you're starting to, you know, there's pressure that's that's coming in within in that environment. Do you have any thoughts? You know, it is tough as a you know, supporting children in that in environment. Any any thoughts on that from a systemic because that is the system. It is it is a pyramid. That's right. The air gets more and more rarefied.

John Bertrand 51:44

Yeah.

Brigette McGuire 51:45

Not everyone can't.

John Bertrand 51:46

I think I think again it's keeping in perspective. The people who've loved what they've been doing, loved it, generally, and they're good people, in other words, leveraging off the you know, the dickhead scenario that I talked about before, uh, then they can do pretty damn well. Okay. One of the beautiful stories that uh Nicole Livingston Limp in, okay, head of this Victorian Institute of Sport now, she's a terrific woman. She said the most the the best time of her whole swimming career was Friday nights when they had a barbecue on the pool deck, the families involved, and the coach used to th put uh uh twenty cent pieces, twenty cent uh you know coins into the pool, and you duck dived. Right. That was it.

Brigette McGuire 52:32

Yeah.

John Bertrand 52:33

With and sh they were in training and all that stuff, but that was her memory of a y of a youth. And she still remembers it and still repeats those stories of her love of the sport, Friday nights, looking forward to Friday nights and duck diving for 20 cent pieces and coming up. So it's the whole experience, isn't it? And it's the family there and whatever, no pressure and whatever. Okay. So then you fast forward or not, or you know, project forward to trying out for the Olympic team, the pressure's on. And it's a matter of just keeping life into perspective. You know, we are still playing.

Brigette McGuire 53:05

Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. No, I totally agree. Now, I know, John, that you're you're asked, you're in in demand for advice for whether it's federal, you know, government agencies, whether it's uh corporates, you know, I've seen you speak at various at corporate events as well, and and the you know, the audience is spellbound by the lessons that you that you share with them. But tell me, when you when you're working more intimately with whether it's corporates or who or whoever those those leaders are, what are your key messages for them from everything that you've experienced from in the world of sport and business and and more broadly in in life, from traveling overseas, bringing that knowledge back, what are what are the key lessons that that you think that are are most valuable for for leaders here in Australia particularly?

John Bertrand 53:55

I think the one of the most important statements I can make to anyone is personally, all I know is I don't know.

Brigette McGuire 54:01

Okay.

John Bertrand 54:02

And that is that the world is changing. There's so much knowledge out there, there's so little I know. I know a little bit about stuff, certain things, but uh uh but primarily I I have a mindset is uh and as a result, a curious mindset for growth.

Brigette McGuire 54:19

So the journey, it's a bit it's in cora in paro, isn't it? The motto of of Monash University, which is I am still learning.

John Bertrand 54:26

There we go. All the way through. Okay. You know, the whole uh AI, the all of this stuff, but human endeavor, body language. I met the coach of the Melbourne Football Club this morning. Okay, we go around the town occasionally every with any rate, some good people from fun people, and uh he he's having a coffee there. I was really impressed with his body language. He's just been a guy called Stephen King. He's just been brought in, and he's the coach of of Melbourne Footy Club, AFL, and they're doing very well. Big turnaround. Primarily they've they let a few people go, they had to, bad culture, move them on, and but they've yeah, at any rate, they're doing great. His body language and enthusiasm was absolutely fantastic, and honesty. Started to ask him a few questions. It was clear that he shouldn't be answering those, you know. What would he do about uh his, you know, one of the competition there, Carlton Footy Club, because they're not doing well. And he was about to answer it and then realised he shouldn't be, but it didn't matter, you know, the fact that you were going to share with us something well. Uh but his enthusiasm and honesty, and a good bloke, a good person. Okay. I was really interested in that, you know, in terms of the way he presented himself and this whatever. So that now my observation there comes from really years of studying people.

Brigette McGuire 55:45

Okay.

John Bertrand 55:46

You know, and endeavouring to understand what will work with them and what won't. Because, you know, one of my areas that I I really enjoy is endeavoring to build high performance teams, you know, no matter whether it's uh well, you know, America yacht racing or businesses or whatever. And this type of person, there's no question he's going to be successful, already is. Just the way he's presenting himself. Okay. But all I know is I don't know. There's so much out there. So the curiosity is so important. And for and to project vulnerability, you know. When I say that, I I spoke to the Sydney Kings before the grand final out in Sydney, yeah, with the NBL basketball. And I started with that statement, and these guys looked at me, you know, why is he here? And then I went on to endeavor to uh lay out, you know, some of some of the thoughts about high performance and people working with people and so on. But uh that consideration of showing vulnerability as well. You know. And you know what? And vulnerability sh comes from confidence. If you lack confidence, then it's very difficult to be vul show vulnerability to someone else.

Brigette McGuire 56:52

Defenses are up.

John Bertrand 56:53

Yeah. You're protecting whatever.

Brigette McGuire 56:56

Yeah.

John Bertrand 56:56

So life's interesting, isn't it? It's certainly. The way people interact with each other and so on. You know, in your world, you know, when you're presenting to your class, okay, to really for you to nail it for people to really lean forward instead of leaning back, okay. What is that what is she going to say next? What am I going to learn and so on? That's the end game here, you know?

Brigette McGuire 57:17

Well, like a good sports marketer, John, you have to make it a must attend event.

John Bertrand 57:21

Here we go.

Brigette McGuire 57:22

And the end of the class, like any presentation or whatever the communication or experience is, you have to leave people wanting more, wanting to return again the following week, the following day, whatever it may be.

John Bertrand 57:39

Yep. Love it.

Brigette McGuire 57:40

So that is, you know, whether that's, you know, with the Australian Open Marketing that or various other programs or a giving a coaching, coaching lesson. Yes. That's where you want, you know, as you do, this conversation. I I want to have another one, John, because you want to learn more. Yeah, and you want the people to experience, have that great experience and and return again. So that's the that's the trick that we keep where that we keep working. I have I have one final question for you today, John. I just want to thank you for your for your generosity of of time and and all the wisdom that you've that you've shared. So for my students, you know, you sit there and and you don't know what impact you're necessarily having on them. I know that I was very lucky, you know, I had a couple of teachers that really inspired me and light bulbs went off, and I was able then to take that knowledge into market successfully. You know, if there's students out there who have the same ambition that that you had to be not just good, but to to be the best in the world at whatever they choose to be a crazy. Okay. What would you say?

John Bertrand 58:51

What would I say? What's the question?

Brigette McGuire 58:53

What would what would you say to them?

John Bertrand 58:55

Oh, okay.

Brigette McGuire 58:55

If they're listening to us now, what would you say? So I've heard from you that you know key themes and values around curiosity, yeah, enthusiasm, crazy. What else? Is there anything else that you would say to them?

John Bertrand 59:12

Uh I think, you know, the consideration of backing yourself.

Brigette McGuire 59:15

Okay.

John Bertrand 59:16

So the interesting thing about life is you go down a a tunnel of passion. Okay. Hopefully you can actually make a living from it or some spin-off as a result. In other words, be clear-eyed about this thing.

Brigette McGuire 59:30

Okay.

John Bertrand 59:31

You know. So, you know, very high-end sport. Generally it, you know, you've got to be uh not only focused, but um, what's the word? You know, we've to the exclusion of everything else. Okay. Uh, which is not very good in terms of, you know, being part of a family unit or whatever. Uh so just, you know, to be aware of that, that but you've got a time in life where you can give this a crack. Okay. And if you're going to give it a crack, then really do it seriously, okay? Having fun all the way through, having enjoy you know, enjoying the environment. This consideration of collaboration is a big word, but so powerful. To have a interpersonal style and values and a sense of trustworthiness that people want to collaborate with you. Okay. Really, really important stuff. And uh generally give it a a shot such that you don't have any regrets. Okay. If they talk, you know, we talk about sinking or swimming, no question about it. And then look back and say, okay, job done, for better or worse.

Brigette McGuire 1:00:32

Gave it my best shot.

John Bertrand 1:00:33

Absolutely.

Brigette McGuire 1:00:34

John, thank you so much for joining Love the Fan. Win the game.

John Bertrand 1:00:39

Well, my great pleasure to be involved. Thank you.

Brigette McGuire 1:00:41

John Bertrand, AO, is an Australian sporting legend, business leader, and a distinguished Monash University, a lifetime achievement award winner. Thank you, John.

John Bertrand 1:00:52

And thank you.