‘We’ve lost the art of just being human’

Ben Crowe has a theory about life, and given his role as mindset coach to everyone from retired tennis great Ash Barty to AFL superstar Dustin Martin and reigning Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott, it’s probably worth a listen.

“My primary hypothesis at the moment is that we’re so distracted by creating our self-worth – by achieving and money and fame and status and recognition – that we’ve lost the art of just being human,” says Crowe, 53. “But if you go completely the other way, that’s where the gold is.”

“It’s the nuances and the idiosyncrasies and the laughter,” he continues. “That’s what connects humans. I think if we can get back to just being more playful … and celebrating those imperfections and nuances, we create a connection we didn’t realise we had.”

Most athletes, Crowe points out, are so bound up in their own success that they don’t know who they are. But most people, he adds, don’t know who they are either. “As a consequence of that, they don’t know how to share their story because they don’t know what they stand for, or what they believe in,” he says. “I’ve never seen the world so distracted as it is right now. I think if we can redefine success from a more intrinsic point of view, and find the joy in there, we just take so much pressure off ourselves.”

Crowe, of course, is drawing on decades of experience guiding athletes and leaders, soldiers and17 CEOs, in a marketing, management and mentoring career spanning decades. In a wide-ranging conversation on the latest episode of Good Weekend Talks, he draws on his friendships from that time with the likes of world champion surfer Stephanie Gilmore, Indigenous Olympic runner Cathy Freeman, the late cricketer Shane Warne and the great basketballer Michael Jordan.

The podcast is hosted this week by Good Weekend senior writer Melissa Fyfe, who profiled Crowe for the magazine’s recent cover story, “Mind Games”. Their discussion goes back to his beginnings in suburban Melbourne, including the humbling moments he began rubbing shoulders with sports royalty, including an impromptu dinner in Miami with Nike founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, Howard White, who managed Michael Jordan for Nike, tennis star Pete Sampras and his girlfriend at the time, as well as Andre Agassi and his then wife, film star Brooke Shields.

“There were one or two others, and me, right? So who’s a duck out of water at that dinner?” Crowe asks, laughing. “Do you ever go to those dinner parties when you have absolutely nothing to contribute? Absolutely. Well, this was that night for me.”

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