Campbell Johnstone Recap: How To Crush Stigma: Being The First Openly Gay All Black

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book, Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome back to the show and we're going to talk about some of the key highlights from the Campbell Johnston episode. Campbell is a former All Black and Canterbury crusader. He also played in Russia, Wales and France. And look, he recently opened up and spoke about his sexuality. Campbell is now recognized as being the first openly gay All Black and he is speaking up now to try to eliminate the stigma around being gay and professional sport, hoping to help others come out and have a different experience than he did. And I'm sure that that same sentiment rings true across many different industries, not just sport. So I would say Campbell was incredibly vulnerable and honest and said that he suppressed this part of himself throughout his entire career out of fear that it would derail his dream of being an All Black. So I'm going to share some of the key takeaways. Some of these will be really powerful for your business, for your life, for your relationships. But before we do that, quick mention that we've obviously cancelled all promotions and adverts on the show for your benefit, so you really get the best experience as a listener. But in return, please, can I ask you for a favor? I'm really, really focused on becoming the number one ranked podcast on the Apple charts. We got number two again recently, last week. I'd really love to push up into that number one spot. I can only actually do that with your help. So please share this podcast with three people you think might like it. If you haven't already, please hit that follow button and leave me a rating. It'll take you five seconds, maybe less. Three seconds and a short review that will help me to promote the podcast to more incredible people like you and be able to keep those adverts and sponsorships off the show and we can remain just focused on content. Now let's get back to those takeaways. Look, Campbell spoke about using visualization to get himself into the All Blacks. Now let's face it, the All Blacks are arguably the greatest team of all time, no matter what country you go to when you mention All Blacks, people can see that beautiful New Zealand fern. They know what it means. It means excellence. It means commitment. It means fierce determination. And Campbell says, you know, it began from when he first started to play rugby as a young kid. He would visualize himself in the next team, that next team up, and then he would think about it continuously and fanaticize over that. Once he had moved up into that next team, he would then begin to visualize the next steps that he wanted to take. And look, where are you doing that in your life? Or, hey, maybe more importantly, where are you not doing that in your life? What are you visualizing as your next step? Because wherever your focus goes, all of your energy and your action flows. So what are you thinking about? What are you really getting excited about? What are you seeing in your mind's eye? And if you're not seeing those things, you're probably, well, I'm going to be a bit bold and say, you're definitely not being magnetized in a powerful way towards something that's going to stretch you and make you grow. Look, here's something really important. Campbell said one regret that he has from his rugby days was becoming complacent when he actually made the All Blacks. Now, let's think about that. One of the greatest. One of the greatest enemies of success is complacency. I'll repeat that. One of the greatest enemies of success is. Is complacency. When we get to the outcome, we get the title, the job, the CEO, the All Black, whatever it might be. Often human nature kicks in and we become complacent. We don't train as hard, we don't grow as much. We don't read the books, listen to the podcast, go to the events, ask for support, do the extra miles. We just call it in. We become complacent. And Campbell said, look, he had worked so hard throughout his entire career to visualize the steps ahead and know where he was heading and going in that career towards the All Blacks. But once he made it to the top, he stopped visualizing because he couldn't think of another step forward or up. And that led to him getting released from the All Blacks and ultimately his rugby career. So just take a moment to think about that. You know, have you got to a point where you're maybe being a bit complacent in a relationship, in your life? You may be just a bit comfortable not showing up with full presence and excitement and passion? Or is that maybe your job? You know, you're not Showing up with that same sense of commitment, so incredibly important. Now, a big thing that came up in the conversation with Campbell was around sacrifices. And he said what others call sacrifices to make it where you know, to where he was as an all black, he just seen as part of the process. It was just simply a requisite. You got to do it. And he said in order to get to the top, he had to embrace his inner selfishness. Any of you who commit to great things will know that it takes some degree of self focus. You can call it selfishness if you want, but you've got to focus on yourself if you want greatness in any realm of your life. So what are you doing? What sacrifices are you making? And you might call them something other than sacrifices, but where are you kind of going out of balance? There's this whole idea that work life balance is the be all, end all. But to me, work life balance, it's very different for everyone. There's no real actual balance. But to me, if you're a high performer, which you are, you listen to a podcast right now that is challenging you to step up and be the best version of yourself. Well, if you're that high performer, then I suspect you're out of balance somewhere in your life. You're a little bit more obsessed, deeply focused on something. What's that one thing? And to me, you're willing to make sacrifices to spend a little bit more time on that thing, or get up that little bit earlier, or stay up that little bit later, or say no to the social occasion or whatever it might be. Say no to the opportunity so that you can focus on what truly matters. And let's face it, when you focus on what truly matters, the rest is just noise.

Look, Campbell opened up about his sexuality and he has recently come out publicly as gay. And he feels that the message needs to be spread around the sporting world that in order to be in team sport or a sport, you do not need to need to be the typical stereotype of masculine alpha male that everyone seems to portray as sportsmen, that they need to be really caring about your teammates and the people around you is a much better way to be. Being honest about who you are. And living authentically is also a much better approach. So where are you showing up authentically? Where do you need to show up a little bit more as you. What difficult conversation do you need to have that would help you just thrive as you. Not this mask or this version that you put up for yourself? I often get to events early, whether I'm Attending as a participant or I'm running the event, and I watch people as they're getting close to the venue, and I watch their faces when they're 100, 200, 300 meters out. And as they get close, I start to see the body language shift, their face shift. They start to test out their smile muscles, and the posture just gets realigned. And as they come through the door, bang, the smile comes on and they engage. And that bang, the smile, the posture, that's the mask that the individual is portraying that they want the world to see that's not the true them. And look, to a certain degree, we all do that. And for social niceties to work, we've got to have some of that going on. But when we go too far with that, we become somebody that we're not. And I'm going to challenge you to think, where do you need to be more authentically you so crucially important. So, look, if you haven't listened to that full episode with Campbell, it was incredible. He shared so much around high performance, his strategies, his life that you could apply to your life and your business. And he also shared about his sexuality. And to me, we can all learn so much from his courage, from his vulnerability. And there's going to be someone in our life who needs to hear the message that Campbell has to say. So if there's somebody that you know, that you think would really value from hearing his story, please do them a favor and share that episode directly with them. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose.

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