About this episode
Joining me in conversation today is Sam Smith, a former professional rugby player from England who due to injury was forced to retire in his middle twenties. Sam soon after became a successful entrepreneur but struggled with identity issues that s0 many former professional athletes do. Like many, he hit bottom but eventually found a path forward. Today Sam serves as a life coach to former athletes across the globe. His lived experience and kindness has helped many men and women regain their life’s purpose. We’ll be talking about his book, “The Door Was Never Locked: Remember What You Are,” and the new life he has built for himself and others.
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On Mic Podcast — SAM SMITH, AUTHOR OF “THE DOOR WAS NEVER LOCKED” -531. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Welcome to another edition of On Mike with Jordan Rich, conversation alive and well with creative people who have a lot to say and certainly a lot to offer. Our guest today is former professional rugby player Sam Smith. When Sam's career ended he felt lost and struggled with his own identity. After hitting a low point in his life, Sam clawed his way back and realized he had a mission to help others particularly athletes from the depths of despair when their career comes to an end. Sam is a guide and mentor to many across the world and he's written a book called The Door was never locked. Remember what you are. As he says, life shows you what you're meant to see when you're meant to see. Sam Smith joins us now on Mike. Sam, I'm going to tell you something and you might be embarrassed but you're a lot more handsome than I thought you'd be. I thought you'd be all beaten and bruised and rugged but you look fantastic. Thank you very much. Yeah, well I played on the wing in rugby so I stayed as far away from the action as possible.
It saved me a little bit. Well, we're ready to talk about rugby because that's a key element here but you've written a book called The Door was never locked. Remember what you are. It's very simple premise and the words are very select and special. We'll get to that in a minute. Tell me about your sports career particularly in rugby. Yeah, so I started playing rugby when I was 13. My dad had played rugby for England and my mother had rode for Great Britain so I came from a good sporting family and narrated some of those genes and I left school and went straight to play for Harley Quinn's in London and I played through the England age group under 16s under 18s under 20s and rugby was my life for a long time and it was everything I did. It was everything I built built myself around and I gave everything to it when I was playing. You gave everything to it. It took a lot from you as it does from others. First of all, it's a very rough and tumble sport that we all know about here in the States just by watching it. What did Rugby do to you
because it impacted your life? Yeah, it had a profound impact in my life in positive and negative ways. I built my whole self-worth around being a rugby player and being good at this sport that I played and when I got injured at 25 and retired at 26, I lost that part of me and at that moment I also lost all of my self-worth and value and it was an incredibly dark time coming out of the sport for me. Deep depression, suicidal moments, drugs, alcohol all whilst building a business because I can look back at it now and see that this is what I did but in the fear of losing who I was, I thought, oh well, founders are cool. Founders are valued in society. I'll become one of those and started a thing. I threw everything into that trying to find myself and that really was the theme of my twenties and late teens. We're going to get to where you are today and how you've turned that
into an opportunity to help others, particularly athletes. What you're saying resonates because there are examples upon examples of athletes who are done early or done even at the end of their career at 30, 35 years old who are lost. Everybody is gone and they fall into these crevices. This is something that needs attention across the board from college to pro. It's everywhere and it's not really spoken about in sport in the way that I think it could be. I think that all of the focus is on what you're going to do after sport. It's all focused on, well, you're going to lose this thing that you do, what's the replacement doing and it just forgets and takes away all the complexity of being a human underneath this thing that we do, this title that we have. It's causing a lot of men and women to be very lost when they come out. I was thinking about you and doing this interview prior to the Olympics and then watching the Winter Olympics of 2026 and seeing
these wonderful athletes, some of them expected to win, didn't, some of them injured and perhaps forever and then love to come back to the sport. It makes your heart break and you feel for them but I can't imagine what it feels like to go through something, to put your heart and soul and body through something and then it's over. Yeah, I think the sound effect you gave kind of sums it up very well. It does, it feels like it all goes up in a puff of smoke. So your story is interesting because you say you put your efforts into building a business. Tell us what that business was and also tell us did that help at all or did that just lead to more burnout? So I started a coffee shop and restaurant in the town that I finished playing rugby in and ended up growing that to three restaurants across three cities and then we also had a wholesale coffee roasters. So we started roasting coffee for ourselves and for other cafes and restaurants. It was an amazing journey and it was just me repeating my pattern
of trying to find validation and prove myself in the outside world by being good at something. I never really, I wasn't aware enough to notice this in rugby or we would win a championship and then the expectation of all that that hasn't done anything but I wasn't almost aware of that in the moment but I was really, really aware whilst I built my business that I had this story that when I open the doors to my first shop then I'll feel like I've arrived and it's great and life can be good at that point and I open the door and I felt the same. I felt the same and I was like right well I must be and I need to open to and then I need to reach a million and turn over and then I need to open the third and by the third shop I realise that it wasn't working. It's so interesting because it reminds one of the story of addiction whatever that addiction is. In some cases you're addicted to drugs, alcohol, food, sex, shopping or in some cases including mine you're addicted to the roar of the crowd and the appreciation of the fans and the thrill of scoring a goal
or the thrill of being on a stage isn't that true? Yeah so true and the way I see it is whenever we're addicted to something we're searching for something that we don't have and believe that that thing is going to come from the substance or the relationship or the moment on stage. Now you've made it a point to help others, particularly in your area of expertise which is rugby, sport, athletics, etc. How did that start and you recall the first experience in that realm? So the first experience I had was actually in the business realm so when I had the roastery I we get winning these big accounts against much more established roasteries than us and I couldn't really work out what I'd done or what we were doing to make that possible and I realise actually what it was because I was offering to coach the founders of these businesses and share my journey, my story, my experience with them. That was what was winning us these accounts and I was doing this thing called coaching, not knowing it was coaching
and I was loving it and I felt alive and I felt like I was doing the thing I was put here on this earth to do and then I had this real realisation and I was like I could just do this all the time. The obvious way into doing that was with athletes so that's where I started, I started helping people that I'd played with or against and the word kind of spread that if you're leaving in the next year or two, call Sam. That's how my business started and three years on I still have athletes in transition but I also help athletes who are still playing and I also work with founders and senior leadership teams and the work for me is all about a return to your self, a return to what's true and living your life as an expression of joy and wonder and excitement and fun and play, whatever it is that you're up to. There's a mention of a mentor, somebody who came into your life and I'll have you describe that person in what impact he had. Yeah, his name is Hugh and he was a regular at my coffee shop.
I always say that he must have watched this slow decline of me over the first two years of running it. One day he put his arm on my shoulder and said I think we need to go for a coffee but not here. I tried to say no, I knew what he was getting at. I wasn't ready to accept help but thankfully he stuck by me and eventually we worked together for a few years and he turned my life around in such a short space of time. You know, the option of having your eyes opened and your ears available to the world to listen. The door is never locked. Realize when you look back that there's their identity. That guy could have entered another coffee shop and just ignored the guy behind the counter but he was there for you at the right time in the right space and so forth. Let's talk a little bit about what you write about. The door was never locked. Remember what you are. These are very, very heartfelt, easy to read, easy to grasp, philosophical understandings of life. Organically, how did this book come together and how did you decide to pick the topics you picked?
So I was on my honeymoon in Peru in August and on the second morning I woke up about 630 and it felt like life. Plugged the USB stick in my brain and just downloaded this chapter list and I remember Holly waking up and she looked to me, she was, what's going on? I was so excited. And I jumped out of bed and I scribbled this list down and it's essentially the chapter list is probably 90% where it ended up as a complete book as to what came through that day and then it felt like my job was when I got home I was just to fill in the gaps. I just sat down and I started writing from chapter one and what came is what came and I've never written poetry before but it kind of came out somewhere halfway between prose and poetry, which was the surprise to me. Well, let me just pick a page at random. I mean, just opening up the book and this is on page 59. It's number 44. Trying is the ultimate cop-out. I'll read it for you just to make it easier. I'll give it a try, quote unquote.
Life's ultimate cop-out. Setting yourself up to be okay with the fact you didn't do what you said you were going to do. Life only responds to what you do. That's one of a bunch of things that you write about. Was this a cathartic experience as I'm guessing for you? Yeah, totally. I loved it. It was a real, it felt like it was a closing of a chapter of this period of my life where I was able to articulate to myself how I see the world now and to have it in one place has been a really special thing to create. It's a shame when people give up on themselves or others. I believe everyone and everything is salvageable to a certain extent. What's your take on that? Yeah, I love it. I don't believe anyone's broken and I don't believe anyone needs fixing and that's how I look at anyone when they come to sit with me is you can live the life that you want to live.
It might feel like it's a long, long way away but it's always closer than we think and we're always the only person that's in our way. It's interesting as an athlete, a professional who had his share of wins and certainly losses but wins and championships. The perspective changes when you look at it from your point of view today. It's only a game and it's not forever and if you lose and ain't the end of the world. Failure. A good lesson. Sometimes they'll have to drop down to the crevice to the bottom, dig your way back up to understand what it all means. Yeah, I don't know if there's a shortcut for that bit. I feel like it's a necessary part of everyone's journey to work out that life. So, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, you go. Okay, how does your counseling and coaching work? Do you work one-on-one with people? Do you have online workshops? Tell our audience how you do it.
So I work predominantly one-on-one with people and like I said, it's usually athletes or founders or senior leaders but I've also had people come to me to help save a marriage or start something new. It's often people at inflection points in their life that are big crossroads and not sure what's the next step is or wanting to unfold into the next chapter. That's my specialty, that transition moment because my transitions in life have been quite messy and dark. I think I have a pretty good read on ways to move through in a much smoother fashion. I agree. I think it takes one to no one and to be instructive and mentored and to offer advice. It always helps to have the experience of falling down so you can help somebody get up. I couldn't agree with you more. Do you work around the world or is it predominantly in the European sector? So I have a quite big East Coast,
America, in terms of client base and a couple in Australia, but predominantly UK and Europe. That's the beauty of Zoom. I'm able to help people if I'm the person to be in that corner, then I think life has a pretty neat way of making us find each other and connect. The technology is fantastic for that reason alone. I mean, there are problems with technology as well, but not that getting connected is terrific. It really is. So advice for athletes not at the professional level, but in high school college or even pre and maybe you have advice for parents or what is the best philosophy to follow early on so you don't necessarily wind up in the deepest of traps. I think for me, it's all around identity. If you're identified as the rugby player or the football player or the hockey player, if that's who you believe you are,
that's where the stickiness and the trouble comes from. But if the sport is something that you do, it's just one part of your life, a facet of your life, a way of expressing yourself, then you have much more likelihood of being able to move through that sport into something else and not have to go through the kind of crash that I did in a lot of athletes do. So the focus on self-esteem, it sounds trite, but it's really important. Understanding who you are, understanding there's more to you than just big strong athlete or fastest skier or best swimmer, whatever it might be. That's what you do, it's a talent, but you're an individual with a lot of gifts and a lot of things to offer. Exactly that, there's a lot of freedom in that. And congratulations, you said you went on your honeymoon this past year? Yes, in August, yeah. Okay, so you found the relationship that matters. That's another thing about anything sports, business, a Hollywood. Oftentimes the family part of it is left behind
and suffers, but it appears that you have sort of regained your balance and doesn't that make life more interesting and fun? It's a lot more rich than every part of life feels very alive and it's something that I really focus on with my clients is how can work in rich home life and how can home life in rich work. And I think there's so much more for people there when you look at it through that lens. We started this conversation by me complimenting you on how handsome young men you are, no scars, no marks that I can see. Because you said you're a wing, which means you're not in the scrum, right? You're not in the middle of all the bumping and grinding as much as the other guys. Exactly, liking it to a wider receiver. Okay, all right, very good. I have seen a couple of rugby matches when I've been to Europe and these guys do women play professional rugby as well? Yeah, okay. Guys and gals are just tough as nails physically. But as you know, and I know we're all vulnerable, right?
We're all human vessels with vulnerabilities. Let's talk a little bit before we wrap up about how people can reach you. You also have a substack. You want to mention that for us? Yeah, so my substacks field notes from the soup and I share, sometimes I share fictions, sometimes I share stuff from client work or things I've noticed. And it's really a continuation of the book. And the website is www.thisisthechangingroom.com. Double meaning there. I think I understand where you're going. And the book, which is very, I keep calling it simple. It's not simple at all in terms of its intelligence, but it's very easy to digest. And it is poetry. It's called The Door was Never Locked. Remember what you are by Sam Smith. And I guess anyone who wants to go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble or whatever site can order it. So at the moment, it's just available on Amazon, but it is available worldwide. I enjoyed it very, very much.
I mean, I just gave one example. I mean, I'll just read a couple of the titles here. Judgment is a mirror. Thoughts or invitations. You don't have to say yes to honor who got you here. It all ties together nicely, Sam. And I really want to thank you for making the time. And I want to thank my friend Ed for connecting us because it's all about connection. Thank you so much and God bless you and keep up the great work. Thanks a lot for joining us. We love you to me. Sam Smith, the website, this is thechangingroom.com. And once again, the book The Door was Never Locked. Remember what you are. Remember just how much I appreciate you, subscribing, downloading, rating, and reviewing this podcast. Go to jordanrich.com for much more. And as always, remember dear friends, to be well, so you can do good. Take care. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
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Thank you. Thank you.
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