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Life after Rugby: Lewis Moody on the ‘catalyst for change’ that gave England legend a ‘deep sense of purpose’

James While

Lewis Moody is the most decorated British player in the history of rugby. With a trophy cabinet that bulges with seven Premiership titles, two European and, of course, a World Cup winner’s medal, the former Tigers tyro was one of the key bricks in the England and Leicester defensive walls for over a decade.

But Moody was forced to call time on his career in an unplanned manner; moving to Bath after 14 years at Leicester, his injury-savaged body made the decision for him at the age of 32 as his shoulder once again succumbed to the physicality of both the sport and Moody’s fearless approach towards it.

In an interview on behalf of eToro, the official investing and trading partner of Premiership Rugby, Moody admits he had not given much thought during his playing days as to what might come next.


“Looking back, perhaps a big part of me was ready to retire at that moment, but I’d neither realised it nor consciously come to terms with it,” Moody says.

“My body dictated it in no uncertain terms. Could I have continued? Probably, but in a diluted form – and the way I played was never anything but full fat, that was my approach, and the last thing I wanted was to be a pale imitation and be the person that says, ‘mate, three years ago I could have done x, y or z to you’. That’s not who I am.

Serendipity

“Serendipity is a wonderful thing and I’d not really planned anything when I realised that I was going to have to call time on my career.

“The catalyst for change, or in my case ‘doing something’, was a letter from a fan called Graeme Rowley-Stark who had a son, Jos, suffering from a brain tumour. He was looking for some support to raise funds for Jos’s school tour.

“For some reason, the timing and the challenge really helped me. I threw myself, with my wife Annie, into learning about head and brain tumours in kids – and to support Jos and Graeme.

“It gave me a deep sense of purpose and I set up the Lewis Moody Foundation to raise funds for the cause.

“The charity work was tremendously rewarding, but I also needed to do something for me.

“It kept me focused and active, but I realised that, without personal goals and achievements, the quality of life and mental well-being that succeeding on the rugby pitch had given me would erode and diminish.

“It was key for me that I didn’t want to talk about the person I once was, I wanted to be a new version of myself, with vision and purpose.

“I’d always enjoyed corporate work – seeing how the other half did their jobs.

“As an ex-England player you get offered loads of chances to do one-offs, which basically become a chat about your experiences as a player, a little bit about teamship, and off you pop.

“My frustration with that was the lack of real impact in a one-off. I knew from rugby that teamwork and coaching evolve – and need constant nurturing to fulfil potential of teams and its members.”

Finding a point of difference

Moody never failed to lead by example on the rugby pitch but, after being made England captain by Martin Johnson in 2009, he initially struggled to understand what the role required of him.

However, having learned the lessons of what it meant to be a true leader, Moody was in no doubt about what was his ‘point of differentiation’ when he came to think about the skills he had that he could apply to his new life.

“I’d been thrown into leadership with England,” he says. “I wasn’t a natural – in fact I was a recalcitrant skipper and it took me time to understand the role.

“In 2010, in Australia, Quade Cooper destroyed me in the first Test. I was bloody awful and as captain I had to do better.

England captain Lewis Moody is tackled by Ben Daley of Australia

“But I realised that I’d been too worried with helping others – and the best way I could help them further was to focus on my game and deliver the performances that had got me picked in the first place. It taught me a lot about leadership – that you have to be a conscious leader.

“Leadership is about focus and making decisions. And the biggest decision that I made in terms of self-development was to commit myself to leadership and team coaching.

“But I wanted to make a lasting impact, so I went on a journey of personal investment, with laser focus on structured leadership, to learn how to wrap structure around what I’d learned intuitively as the captain of my country.


“My goals were a stable income, wanting to be valued and useful, but above all having a positive impact on others through both academic structure and lived experience, something that I believed gave me a point of differentiation.

“Danny Hipkiss, a former Leicester colleague, was already working as a consultant in this space; Danny took me under his wing and through courses and academic rigour to get that structure to train and mentor others.”

‘This is me’

“It took me two or three years to feel that I’d turned a corner and that I had something genuine and real to offer. I could now say: ‘This is me now’ – I had fully transitioned my career in a focused, structured way and I had invested in the new self that I saw before me.

“It would have been easy to be ‘Rugby Lewis’ and dine out on past achievements. But that’s not me nor is it satisfying. My self-investment allows me to coach others to invest in themselves.

“In my case it was a focused single strand of return – my course, my studies and so on, all with a very visible goal.

“For others, it might be more of a mixed investment strategy in their lives – from the family group to various business interests that give a wider focus.


“But above all, it’s about being prepared to understand that if you want returns from your life- satisfaction, achievement, money, whatever – you need to invest in yourself.

“That’s what I did. And I can honestly say I’m enjoying Business Lewis almost as much as Rugby Lewis. And best of all, I feel as if I can offer value to others.”

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