"I'd literally come from doing the same thing for 20 years. I was so focused, so involved in that, that I didn't really know what else was out there.
"So I went around a lot of my mates and some people, thankfully I had some good contacts to get hold of some different people, and just talked to them.
"I went and milked cows, I went and milked sheep.
"Just really going and doing some stuff."
But as he explains in the latest Cooking the Books podcast, it was a conversation with Brett Steven, a former tennis player turned wealth management adviser for Jarden, that decided his future.
The two men hadn't met before, but Drysdale reached out to him to see what it was like going from sport to finance.
"After that meeting is when I thought okay, this is actually something I should maybe consider.
"You definitely need to go out and talk to people in those industries, talk to your friends, talk to the people that you confide in and run some scenarios past them. Get them to ask you some questions.
"Why are you doing it, what are you doing it for? If those are all aligned, then just go and run with it and give it a go."
He was already an ambassador for Hobson Wealth, so talked to CEO Warren Couillault about his options.
They made an agreement; try it for one year, and if he hated it he could leave with no hard feelings.
He officially joined their ranks in January, and is now an associate financial adviser. He'll be a fully-fledged financial adviser once he finishes the required study for a New Zealand Certificate in Financial Services.
So far he has no intention of leaving when the year is up; he's loving it.
While the need to study puts some people off a big career change, Drysdale said he decided he simply needed to dive in.
"I was aware that I would probably have to do that in any career. Whether that's study as in university study, which I'm effectively doing with this level five certificate, or whether you go into a different industry and learn local rules and train on the job.
"I don't think it was necessarily daunting, knowing that I had to do that. But it has been a bit strange, I guess, after 20 years of not studying to then have to sit down and do assignments and read again."
Drysdale said some people had suggested he would be better to transition from being a rower to a coach.
However he sees becoming a financial adviser as just a different type of coaching, where he gets to instead coach clients into understanding what's going on with their money.
"In some ways it's similar to my previous career. You want to race at the Olympics or the world champs, then that requires a lot of training.
"Not every day is fun but those are the things that you have to do to be successful when you get to that big moment," Drysdale said.
"The worst thing is that you fail and have to go and do something else. But don't be scared of that.
"I've failed many times throughout my rowing career, and those are often the moments that turn you into the success.
"You learn so much from those moments, and then you go on to succeed because of it."
It's an interesting time to be moving into the financial space, with shares, property, and bonds all trending down as the economy takes a tumble.
However Drysdale says that only makes it a more exciting time to be an adviser, especially if he's able to help clients keep an eye on their long-term strategy.
So what are his top financial tips?
Invest for the long term, and make sure your investments are diversified across more than one asset.
"Time is your best friend in investing.
"A lot of my mates say, 'oh what's the latest tip?' Well, we don't claim to try to tip and make that fast money.
"It's all about going on a long-term journey, we're very confident that over the long term we'll be very successful for our clients."
Drysdale said that if someone was to say they needed to have a million-dollar investment that did well in one year, it would be a very difficult thing to deliver for them.
Inflation, interest rates, and how individual companies would perform were hard to predict over such a short timeframe.
But expand it to a five-year investing plan, and it became much easier to deliver a good result.
For those feeling stressed by the current market turmoil, Drysdale said it might be time for them to look away from their KiwiSaver or other investments for a while.
But for those who could stomach it, he believed now was still a good time for careful investing.
"People hear how great the sharemarket is going, and they'll pile in, in times like December last year. Now it's suddenly tanking and people start selling.
"That's kind of the opposite of what you want to do. You want to hear about how bad things are going and be brave and buy in then.
"When you hit those big highs that's when you can take profits, and start to sell out," Drysdale said.
"As long as you don't want to get your money out within the next year, it's created a few opportunities now.
"I think that's the key with investing. As long as you're there for that long term, and you're diversified, you should be all right.
"I can't tell you where the share price will be in December, but in five years' time, I'm sure we'll look back at this time and say it was a pretty good opportunity."
For the interview, listen to the podcast here.
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• Listen to the full interview on the Cooking the Books podcast. You can subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
