The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
01:18:48 · Alan Joyce
[01:18:48] S1: I think it... I would say to you that's not healthy if that's how you define yourself, because I think of myself as as broader than that, and I always have. I'm a husband, I'm a brother, I'm a friend. I'm somebody that likes those personal connections. I'm somebody that has other interests outside of the of work. You know, Rod Eddington, who was the CEO of Ansett, had a great expression. We work to live. We don't live for work. And I've always thought that was the right balance, and work at times can become all encompassing. And absolutely no doubt, when I was setting up Jetstar, when I was running Qantas, at times it became all encompassing, and it became you it became you because you had to focus in on it. But I'm not sure that's healthy. I don't think that's the way you should view your life. I think hopefully everybody's broader than that and bigger than that, and I certainly think that's the case. And it's freed me up, you know. It's like having a big, huge planet in your solar system, which was your job as CEO, and that's moved out. And then it's got the solar system of the other things that are you to be more balanced. And I think that's healthy. And I think that's why everybody should aim for, because that's what life is all about.
01:20:10 · Vidit Agarwal
[01:20:10] S0: I agree and it's something that's one of my development areas, so absolutely. Two questions and then we can move to rapid fire sprint to wrap this up. One, you've met some fascinating people through your time, right? People you've learned from, people you've admired. I love asking people if you could visualise a metaphorical learning room and you have five seats. So you have one seat and you can invite four people, and ideally people you know so it can't be random celebrities and people that you've admired. Would be the four people you'd love to spend a couple of hours with and just ask questions? People you know.
01:20:43 · Alan Joyce
[01:20:43] S1: The people I know that I think would have in that room, the other people I trust. I'll do it maybe two different ways. There would be people that I think would add value to me, which would still be my mother. I still enjoy talking to her, having involvement with her. I think Jeff Dixon, I've always had huge amounts of respect for him. He was my boss, either him or Lee Clearford in in that role. I think there's a friend of mine that has helped me all the way through my career to help set up Jetstar, help worked on the transformation of Qantas. He's a guy named Connor McCarthy. He's one of the brightest people I know. And I think I would then have an ex colleague, either a John Kissing or a Bruce Buchanan, somebody that I think I really respect that just has a great brain and somebody, or Jane Herdlicher, somebody that I just think is brilliant at what they do. And we're good in terms of the input they gave and the advice that they gave. I think I probably... I think if I was approaching it a different way, people you wouldn't know, I'd have a lot of other friends that I do trust. I've always given good advice over the years, I probably could have a room of them equally as valuable as that room. People that haven't had big names, people that just have done stellar careers in where they are and just have got a good sense of what's right and what's wrong. I would probably put them into a room as equally as those names.
01:22:08 · Vidit Agarwal
[01:22:08] S0: I love how you just answered that on the spot because none of these questions were given to you before, and particularly this question, which some people take minutes to think about. You just answered it on the spot so kudos to you for having that foresight of just the names just straddle them off. I said two questions, the last question in the rapid fire sprint is, I'm curious for my own benefit, how have you managed to travel so much? What is your secret? What are your habits and routines when you go on a long flight? I've just come off 14 flights in the last eleven days. I did US and Europe, which is a very dumb decision Alan, but I did that and my body has reminded me of that. I've had the worst cold and flu. If you had to do that, like if you were doing US and Europe from Australia, how would you do it? Like how would you get your body and mind ready for that tough travel schedule?
01:22:55 · Alan Joyce
[01:22:55] S1: I think, so there's a couple of things that I think are really useful. We did I know the right way of doing it, and then the way I do it, and I'm not perfect, because we had the Charles Perkins Institute go through the science, out of the scientists, the science of everything that you need to do. And I think on the Qantas website, where it are through Charles Perkins, you could find that. And there are things like you start getting yourself into the time zone that you're going to, and you start thinking about adjusting your circadian rhythms to get there. You then go precisely to that time zone. So you eat and you drink with that in mind. You don't have any alcohol on the flights. You make sure you're fully hydrated. When you get to your destination, you stay up and you're in the sunlight and you get your dose of sunlight, and the same when you get back to make sure your circadian rhythms get into it. And on Qantas aircraft now, the whole lighting system on the aircraft that's designed around the circadian rhythms and getting you into that and so on. Now do I do all of that? No, I don't. I have a drink on board the aircraft. But then the the the other thing I think is really, for me, what always works really well is exercise at both ends. Go to the gym when you arrive, get yourself into an exercise regime, go out jog outside is even better if you can do it, to get the circadian rhythms working and getting that right. I think I still find jet lag going back is worse than going there. So I always suffer when I get here, but you can minimize that in a few days if you try and do exercise and get out into the sunlight.
01:24:38 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:24:38] S0: Okay, that makes me feel better. I assume running an airline for so long, you'd have a pack of things you'd carry on the plane and a manual and you'd be perfect at this. [01:24:47] S1: Not at all. And I think usually to show you how bad I was, when I was traveling quite a lot, I always ended up with catching a cold and the flu, which meant that you were not doing a ride. And that happened so often when I was travelling. So yeah, think for everybody. [01:25:04] S0: I'm a clean freak, so I hate touching stuff. I was talking to someone the other day about, you know, the security trays, we can put your stuff in that. I hate that. So COVID was great because everything was wiped down. COVID was very bad for many reasons, but one of the things I loved about COVID is everything was clean, particularly in airports and planes. And that bugs me to no end. Germs that are on a plane and on an airport that has got nothing to do with US CEO, by the way, but that just is the reality when you've got that there's traffic coming through, that bugs me to no end.