Friendship, Gratitude, And The Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Our relationship goes back 16 years to when he sold me my protein powder at Supplement Superstores on Eager Road. And we built this great friendship that has, I mean, we sat in his office for two hours yesterday on his birthday, just chopping it up, talking life. I mean, it was just an incredible two hours yesterday. And they have welcomed all of us into their home, and they don't do this. So this is like a really special thank you for you to allow us to do this for three years in a row. Um, I just I I I love the two of you, and uh relationships mean so much to me. And uh this is special because the two of you didn't know each other, and now they're doing stuff together. We're gonna talk about all of it. So we just wanted to have some fun, bring you some, I know there's gonna be some laughter, bring you some joy, but uh really take you behind the scenes. I shared earlier that Will went on to have an unbelievable NFL career nine years. But I remember when we were sitting in DeJan Gomes' apartment when he was a so I was one of his teammates at Nebraska, and Will literally looked at me. He's on the practice squad. I I flew in, we we went and had a steak dinner that we had no business going to because you were literally on practice squad. That's what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

I was like, what's the the black card? You got a black card?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

And so I I literally, I'm thinking like, we're going to this steak dinner as if he literally like made all pro for the first time. But we sat in DeJan's apartment and he literally looks at me and he said, Hey man, like I want to take advantage of the fact that I'm better looking and my jokes are funnier when I'm in the NFL. I'm gonna build something. And he said, No, he said, I want to speak, I want to do this, and I am so damn proud of what you've done. So, like when we see this bussing with the boys, I mean, Sal now gets to sponsor them, we're all St. Louis guys. I mean, this is just such a unique opportunity in how all of this has come together. And so, how big you think, how big you think you guys make me better. So, I'm excited to do this, but we're gonna put you on the spot. So, go ahead and hit that backdrop for me if you could.

Welcome To The Bus Nerves

SPEAKER_00 2:12

So, welcome, welcome to the bus. Welcome to busting with the boys.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Hey, this is your show. I was gonna say, I don't have to host, do I? Yeah. Oh shit. Are you nervous? I get a little stage fright with a bunch of people. I get to sit on the bus and there's nobody. It's like we just have our guys on the back of the bus sit there. So anytime I'm in front of a bunch of people, there are there's always uh I do always have nerves speaking in front of people.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

So I I I did want to put you on the spot and say that you have to run the show, but you don't. We could all run it together, the three of us. But the one thing I do, because you know, we talked about belief with Coach Klein, which is amazing. I remember when I came down to see you in Nashville and you just bought the bus. I mean, you talk about somebody who's nuts. I mean, he they buy this old beat-up bus. There was that, what was the name of that coffee shop? Oh, the loading dock. The loading dock. And I mean, he's like, I mean, you gotta check this out, man. We're gonna get this bus and we're gonna do this podcast. And you and Taylor were the first ever athletes to do a podcast. Like, all these athletes do it now. These two actually started that trend, and you were like, we're gonna show we pull up to this bus. I mean, it was like the biggest piece of junk bot. I'm like, what did you pay for this? Like, you're gonna do what?

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Like, what were you thinking when you bought that bus?

The Goal To Own The Podcast

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Yeah, so uh JJ Redick had a podcast going on at the time, uh, The Old Man and the Three. He started with the ringer, he separated from the ringer. The ringer didn't allow him to keep his JJ Reddick podcast, so he created the old man and the three. And that was a moment where I learned a little bit about owning your intellectual property. And um so JJ Reddick was doing it. Pat McAfee, he retired to join Barstool, so he was somebody that was like an inspiration of watching him do it. Um, and just taking those ideas, I remember like back when I would write stuff down in the journal. Uh, you were talking about Coach Klein, and you guys wrote all these goals down and he accomplished them. And I'm thinking we wrote a goal down of being getting the second contract, three years, nine million dollars, and I never fucking sniffed that. So you must not have given me all the secrets. Um held one back. I'll be ready to go. Um but speaking on that and knowing that I I had written down, because I love listening to Rogan a lot. He had a lot of motivational, like inspirational things. I listened to Andy a lot on the MFCO, which uh we had a full circle moment when I got to go on that. And so I've just always been a consumer of anything inspirational, anything motivational. You talk about chasing your edges, anything that I could find. I always just kind of gravitated towards it. Like Ray Lewis is gonna speak today, and that dude indirectly impacted my career as much as anybody because I just consumed anything that Ray Lewis had out there, vocally, playing wise, passion-wise. Uh, but I remember writing down that I wanted to have a podcast with a million downloads and be one of the first active players to do a podcast while still playing. And that was like a goal or a dream that I had that I wrote down when I was in Washington.

Prove It Deal And Future Fear

SPEAKER_02 5:15

And so when I got to Tennessee and um I signed on a one-year, two million dollar deal, and it was more of like a prove-it deal. I was coming off of a Liz Frank. I had an injury that last year in Washington when I was on my restricted free agency. And when I got injured, I kind of knew that I would be going to the market and I was hopeful that I could stay with Washington. And then Tennessee comes in, they offer their deal. So I signed with Tennessee, knowing that Wesley Williard's there, they have Jayon Brown, they have some cats, but kind of a lighter room. So I would essentially be on a one-year prove deal to then get to the next deal. Because in my brain, it's like signing for a multi-year deal, prove it here in Tennessee. And so whenever the draft came around, the Titans traded up and drafted Rashawn Evans. I'm sitting at a local bar in Germantown in Nashville, and I remember I was with Nick Hallett and Logan Janice, two of my best friends. They were in town for the weekend. I remember watching that draft, and when they traded up and got Rashawn as an inside linebacker, you kind of just know what time it is, like in the business of the game that we're in. They're investing all this money to go up and trade up and get a first-round pick at the position that I was currently at. So I kind of knew I would be the how the pecking order would go, whether or not they say it's gonna be an open competition and we'll be next to each other. You kind of just know they're getting this cat from Alabama, he's gonna be the guy. And when you're in my role, you kind of you're not wishing or hoping that people get injured. But if I'm going to put more stuff on tape or get my opportunities like I did in Washington, you would kind of need somebody to go down for me to be to be on the field and be a starter and put that tape out there for whether I'm staying in Tennessee again or whether I hit free agency again. And that unfortunately never happened. I stayed a backup guy, I stayed a special teams guy. And so in my mind that year, I kind of knew it was year six, I believe. And I kind of knew that hey, this is gonna be, I'm gonna be kind of in the journeyman box. And at that point, I was kind of over the idea of being on a 90-man roster and making a 53-man roster. I knew I would, and I knew I could, but that's when it started to click that I needed to start pouring into whatever I wanted to do off the field, more so now, not knowing what my future was gonna be in football, whether I was gonna sign, you know, uh a free agent deal, one year minimum player minimum guarantee, all that stuff, and being on a 90-man roster. So I started to pour into the idea of what's soon to be bustle with the boys, of starting a podcast. And I had a couple teammates in the locker room where I when I would flirt the idea, I bust balls all the time. I'm known as a locker room guy, but guys would say, like, yo, you should have a podcast of your own. And that would almost give me the confidence and courage to start to create or formulate what this could look like. Because again, when you're in football, Coach Kleiman, any head coach, like when you're in these rooms, it's always about sacrificing for the logo on the front of your jersey, not the name on

The Sponsor That Sees Blind Spots

SPEAKER_02 8:14

your back.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

This episode of The Burn is brought to you by our dear friends and partners at Q Logics. Now, you know I don't co-sign things I don't believe in. And I believe in John Chiarando and the team at Q Logics. He's built multiple nine-figure businesses, real integrity, real character, the kind of guy you want in your corner. But here's what happened: all that expertise, all that knowledge, it was just his. Locked in his head, his decisions, his team, you couldn't access it. So John created Q-Logics. He basically said, How do I make everything I've built available to people who actually need it? Here's what that looks like. Q-Logic helps you see the blind spots in your business, the gaps you don't even know you have. You don't know what you don't know. They're your tour guide through that. Q-Logics helps you build systems that make your business work better, or they ask better questions so you're approaching it in the most effective way. And Q Logic has access to a network of businesses and resources, real connections, real synergies that can accelerate what you're building. If any of that resonates, go to Qyphen Logics, L-O-G-I-X.com forward slash Ben. Fill out a form, their team will research your situation personally, then they'll tell you straight. Can they actually help? Thank you to our friends and partners at Q Logics. Make sure you find out more about Q Logics and your opportunity to win more with them today.

Jump When You Can Afford To Drown

SPEAKER_02 9:35

So you never want to be a distraction for a team. So I had a decision to make on if we were gonna stand up this podcast on, hey, Will, essentially, if you start this podcast, if I start this podcast, I have to be ready for playing myself out of the league because I'm gonna be a minimum guy. I'm not gonna be some highly touted roster guy to where whatever I do off the field kind of doesn't matter because I have the evidence on the field that I'm gonna play no matter what. It's like you gotta be prepared for if I'm gonna be a minimum guy on a nine on a 90-man roster, and then a coach is gonna decide is this guy worth having on the team because he does these things off the field. So there's a quote that always stuck with me jump when you can afford to drown. And knowing that, Taylor Luan wanting to co-host with me and him telling me he would do it with me, it just gave me the courage to jump when I could afford to drown. So putting together production, putting together all these things, and then we came across the bus in a gravel parking lot behind the loading dock. And a production, the production team we were working with at the time, they're like, hey, what do you think about this bus? It's kind of sitting behind on the gravel parking lot. And I knew Taylor was gone all offseason, it was April, and I was in more of an urgent stage of like, this isn't gonna work because we got to get it turned around quickly. Like, we have to shoot pod episodes when Taylor's around in Nashville before OTAs breaks and he goes somewhere for the summer. And I was like, but I know when Taylor sees this bus, he's gonna fucking love this bus. And so Taylor got there, we walked back, and I'm looking at it, and it's this busted down bus. I'm talking wasp nest, the the seating in there was all over the place. Like you needed a priest to come in and exercise it before you come onto it. And Taylor was like, the bus was two grand. And he's like, Look, I'll buy the bus and we'll put 10 grand into the bus. And this crew, this group that I'm talking to says that they can turn it around within 10 days or two weeks. And if it works, let's use it. If it doesn't, I'll keep it in my backyard. I love this bus. And so we did that. The the uh contractors we worked with turned it around in a couple weeks, and we just started ripping podcasts. Delaney came on, talked about an IV almost killing him. Like he's you obviously you exaggerate stories. Now you're in the locker room. It's like, dude, I got the IV before this Miami game or before this one game, it almost killed me. Then Pro Football Talk uh releases an article the next day. Tennessee Titan Delaney Walker says IV almost killed him. And so then the training room, I'm not on the team. Again, I'm a free agent at the time. Taylor walks in the building and he's kind of getting a stiff from the training room because now you're putting business internally out in the world, and people can construe it any way they want to. And I remember Taylor coming out of that practice that day, and Vrabel had, wild time to bring up Vrabel right now, but Vrabel had Vrabel had this article, front and center, for the entire team to look at, talking about distraction. This is wild to sit here and talk about this. Talk about full circle. Yeah, full circle moment in real time right now. Distractions on the field, yada yada. Uh the media can take anything that you guys say and paint it however they want to. Like you guys want to do your little bus, you guys want to do your little podcast, go ahead and do that. I want you guys to do everything you want to do off the field, but you have to be careful. Um but that was kind of the start, the launching point of busting with the boys. Then we'd have interviews, we'd backlog them. Like the my mindset was we'll do busting with the boys for the summertime. And then Taylor and I kind of decided we'd do it in the summer, and then we wouldn't do it during football season because you just don't want the heat that comes with what however people can speculate your guys are focused on doing this more than you are playing football, yada yada. All of that stuff kind of uh goes

Backlogging Episodes In Summer Heat

SPEAKER_02 13:26

into it. But then I got on the phone with Pat McAfee, and Pat was kind of a mentor early on for myself, and Pat would tell me that hey, you are now, if you're gonna be in this world, you have to treat your audience, whatever art audience you garner as a singular person and look at them as a friend. And if you're gonna show up for them once a week and it's gonna release, we release on every Tuesday morning. If you're gonna release every Tuesday morning, you need to show up for them all year round. So getting off that phone call with Pat and learning a lot of the ins and outs of the of the game with Pat, from that moment we started the backlog. I remember one week we did about nine to twelve interviews in a week in the bus, where it's sitting in the gravel parking lot in July, 90 degree weather. We just put tarps over top of it, we run a little AC unit, and then when the podcast would start, we we cut it off because we wouldn't want it to affect the sound. Tarps probably made it better. Yeah, yeah, tarps as much as we could, yeah. Way cooler. And um got as many episodes as we could, just sweating our ass off doing it, just believing that it could become something. And then later that that year plays out, I would just like wherever I was, I got uh signed by the Saints for a cup of coffee where I was there for like 10 days before I sprained an ankle and they cut me. But I would be before games, or like the night before games when we'd be in a hotel, I remember traveling to the New York Jets, it was preseason game three, and I was just in the closet with a little audio recorder, we're just recording the intro for the interview, whatever it was gonna be. And I would just do that throughout the year, trying to focus on football. Hey, we're gonna release all these episodes. Any episodes we didn't have backlog, we just claim it as like a bye week for us. And then I ended up going to Oakland later

Barstool Partnership And Keeping IP

SPEAKER_02 15:06

that year. People kind of knew about busting with the boys. Barstool wanted to sit down and have a conversation with us. And when we had that conversation with Barstool, they kind of just like, hey, we want to throw gasoline on whatever you guys are doing. Um, you guys keep the IP, we'll do a split revenue deal. And then we signed with them, fast forward at that Super Bowl the next year in Miami. And so we had a five-year partnership going on with Barstool. That's how everything kind of started.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

You know what's what's really funny? Because we just got an eight and a half minute answer from Will. There's no more oxygen left in the room. And this dude mentions the contract. This is how I know I sit where I sit like on a totem pole. If the totem pole is one through ten, I'm I'm like 34 to maybe 50. After all that whole answer, he never I didn't get any love. Who did you call to get the equipment from, Will? So that's what I'm saying. You're talking about the contract coming out and turning the skirt.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

How am I gonna do a keynote 30-minute speech? My mind goes everywhere. I just rattle, I ramble. I want you to know that he hasn't called me back in like six months. That's bullshit. You had me on FaceTime, what, last weekend with your kids, motivating them for a football game? That is true. That is true. Talk about attitude and effort?

SPEAKER_01 16:22

We did attitude and effort. It was good. It was FaceTime the answer. We should have recorded it because it was really I was we were talking to Enzo about the two things you can control is attitude and effort. And I asked Mr. Will, we were FaceTime, I said, hey, give him a little, give him a little juice. You know what I mean? So he was he was giving him a little juice. And he the the the word fuck slipped out. He's like, I'm sorry. I'm like, do you know who his uncle is? It's all good, man. We are good. But yeah, I appreciate I appreciate the love.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

It was knowing I've gotten to know Sal pretty well and knowing that his love language is words of affirmation.

Mentors, Sponsorship Game, And Loyalty

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Sal was also, if I talk about mentors and people, like I'm big on having like just reaching out, finding mentors, finding people that have been where or are at where I want to go. I want to pick their brain. And Sal was somebody I got on the phone with when I was talking about busting with the boys, did not take his advice because Sal's advice, he gave me an entire list. I remember the DMs, we probably still have them.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

I do, it's in our text.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Entire Sal sent me entire lists of equipment to have for podcasting. Because again, I love listening to the MF CEO at the time. I loved everything podcasting. And Sal sent me a massive list. We also got on the phone to talk about okay, how do you get paid in this industry? Like, what does that even look like? To where if I'm gonna call and reach out to a sponsor, anybody that could work with us, what does that work look like? And he's given me the game and any question that I had. He's even given me game and stuff that I'm not asking or I'm not thinking about. Uh so Sal was also, along with Pat McAfee, I love you so much. He was also a massive mentor at the time for podcasts. You don't have to recover now, it's good. Sal, Sal was like, look, here's what you should do. You shouldn't take on any sponsorship money. You should not get it sponsored. We don't take on any sponsors. You should build it from the ground up. You should get to a spot to where brands want to come at you and then you're getting a piece of equity, like in said thing that they might be doing, which is it's brilliant. And now that Form Energy sponsors us and pays us money to talk about it, but he doesn't want to give me a piece, I now get what I should have probably taken sponsorship money.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

What what I what I also learned is, you know, when Will calls me, I pick up the phone. It's it's an amazing concept, you know, just answer it. And um, so when he calls, you know, they they did a deal with twisted tea for some reason and sold his soul. It's good money, you know. Soul's good price. They drove around, they flew around on a plane with twisted tree everywhere, or T, sorry. Can't even say it. And then he's you know, he calls me, he's like, hey Sal, you think you can get me in with Ann Eiser Bush with uh Knight? You think you give me that? And and what do I do? I call the chief marketing officer that fucking day, and I say, Hey, Kyle, this is my boy Will. He's a St. Louis kid, even though he's not really from St. Louis, he's from Bonterra, but I called he's he's from the he's from the vicinity. And I'm like, you need you need to give your boys a look, especially you know, on the on the heels of everything that happened, like give your boys a look. And you're welcome. Like, where's my cut? Where's my cut? Because I know what the check is. Where's my we'll let the we'll let the we'll let the suits talk about? Here's what I can tell you. Whatever.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Whatever will be, if you're talking about the checks, he hadn't paid for a damn meal with me in 13 fucking years.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

That's because you you you got a black card.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

You told me what that meant. I was like, oh shit. The other thing is, I mean, you gotta think, right? Like that nine million dollars that you wrote down as a go, he's getting that shit back in the podcast. It's coming full circle.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Full circle circle, full circle. What's the next question?

SPEAKER_01 20:04

We only got 26 minutes left. You can't answer it. Don't ask him his thoughts on anything deep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's talk about freight ball. Hey, you you gotta send him that article back. You gotta be like, hey man, you gotta be focused on distractions, things that hurt the team, shit to get you beat.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

You gotta eliminate the shit that gets you beat. Hey, with love.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

What the fuck were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 20:35

With love, Will.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

One thing that I think is amazing is uh just how you support, you know, Will and just you know, the gear that you buy and you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Yeah, like this hat that I had to buy from his website and the shirt that I bought from his website. Oh, you bought you. Yeah. Tell me about that. Well, I support my friends. You know what I mean? I support my friends. I don't even call and ask for free shit. I get on the website.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Wait a second, so you you you sponsor him, so he makes a lot of money, but I if I'm here in Ukraine, you you bought your own hat and t-shirt?

SPEAKER_01 21:04

That is correct. Oh wow. That is correct. But I mean, I listen to the I understand where I'm at on a totem pole. It's low. It's low, but it's okay. I'm his you know, his mentor. Hey, you're gonna be on four of the dead soon. Hey, listen, I'm telling

Fatherhood, Real Respect, And Checking Out

SPEAKER_01 21:22

you. I so I I all joking aside, I love Will. And uh I remember, because we've had, you know, obviously he's in a league, and we didn't have like we don't have like a long-standing friendship where you talk every day, but it's like one of those things like mutual respect from afar. And I was running, and you were on birds podcast? Yeah, two bears, one cave. Two bears, one cave, and I was just kind of like cruising, and I was training for an Iron Man and I was running, and I heard Will on a different podcast on the boss of the boys. And you were talking about your mom. And I remember I got home that day and farm. And I just shot him attacked film, how much I appreciated how good he's doing it. How good of a job he's doing as a dad and a husband. And um, you know, that part for me, like, you think about all the social credit and money and success, like that shit don't it really doesn't even register to me. I don't care. I judge people off how they parent and who they are as people and how they are as you know, characters and stewards of society. And one thing he does a fantastic job of. It's not as he's funny, and you know, he has a podcast, but he's a tremendous dad, tremendous husband. And I always feel like you should let people know those things, right? Like shoot him a message and and ping him. And I pinged him and I was on the porch. It was kind of like a little bit weird, you know, because I've never had like a like Ben'll cry and like tap into the thing, and then he'll cry when you tell him about crying. But he's really good about like heart-to-heart contact. But I'm like, you know, Will, Will, we've been super transactional at this point, like all business. You know, I help him, he doesn't answer my calls, it's all business. And and I call him and I send him or I send him a little voice message. I'm like, hey man, I just heard this little podcast, I was thinking about you. I just want to tell you, you're doing a great job. I'm proud of you, and all these things. And I don't even know, did you listen to that? Oh, yeah. You did? Yeah. No, I'm just fucking with you. But but and then when he started the for the dads, it was cool because it's always been like a little passion passion project because I think we need more good dads in the world, and there needs to be a little bit of humor. But man, we were talking about a backstage. There's no blueprints raising kids. No, they just throw your ass in the fire and like swim. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got twins. Twins, I got three and 14 months, man. I went to war. Yeah. Like Vietnam come out like yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Uh when even when you sent that, it's like again, the respect from afar because again, listening to being a big fan of MFCO, obviously, you guys have had that relationship. And when I got to go on, it's like the way I think of you guys and Andy and the way I saw everything, like feeling that as this full circle moment. Because Andy kind of challenged me in that podcast when I was talking about, you know, going and taking somebody's job. And so a decade later, knowing that it's it came back around to us Missouri boys getting linked back together through Anheuser Bush and not yourself.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

That message actually was prior to Form Energy happening.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Right. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

It was like a prior, it was the summer before.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Right. And so knowing that you reached out and and sent me that and sent me that note, like I'm sitting there again, just remembering like we're all very personal, we're all like we're our hearts on our sleeves. We have like it's it's like I always sit, I always love having conversations with people who have so much perspective on things to where we're we're all very grateful for where we're at, but knowing it's a decade later and I'm in a completely different world and we're getting attached again through stuff like that, like you know, do you think one one thing I'll say because you you really do a terrible job of responding when people reach out to you.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

But um I will say I I never take offense to it, but it's really the strength of the relationship. Because one thing about the two of us, I mean, you pick and you're kind of making that point. Even where like I know how busy you are, so well, actually, you do respond every time when I respond, so thank you. But um, fucking but no, but the the amazing thing is we always pick up right where we left off. Like, no matter the time, no matter any, and it's the same thing, kind of like with Coach Kleiman. There's been challenge, there's been adversity, there's been tough stuff, and I've called Will for things, and you've helped me through things, and you know, other than not getting you the two years, nine million dollar contract, I've got we're we got a few things, but I think that's that's when it's a real relationship. You know, you don't necessarily have to respond right in the moment. And I will say this you've done an amazing job. Because even Amy and I joke sometimes, like, do you think Will could ever actually have children? You really are an amazing father. Like if you're in Hawaii or you're going on vacation, you totally check out. Like sometimes I'll send you a message, why is he not responding? And I'll realize like he's on, like you check out, and the way you give to your family, I of all the things that we've been able to do together, I really am like heartfelt moment, very proud of how you become a great dad. I mean, it really is an incredible thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

I appreciate that, man. A lot of that is my wife. Like, it it'll be a bizarre world that people are in there, you're on your phone all the time. I'm like, yeah, I guess I am. My wife will be very much like on my ass at times when I'm like, could be checked out at home, will be checked out at home. She'll be like, hey, what are you looking at? I'm like, oh, that's the wife saying I need to fucking get off my phone. Yeah. But anytime we do catch up, I always like uh it's always fun.

Twitter DMs And Mental Toughness Work

SPEAKER_02 26:20

We catch up what's going on in each other's lives, and we're always just like, yo, how crazy is it that it all started on social media?

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Right? Twitter.

unknown 26:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

And I didn't know. I'm sitting there telling Chef when I'm sitting over there, and you're giving your you're you're talking about how I was your first NFL player. And I would lean over to the chef, I'm like, what's hilarious? His nickname is Chef, his name is Jack. And um, I'm like, what's hilarious? I didn't even know that I was your first NFL player. Like, I thought you were this buttoned-up dude. I honestly didn't even know. I honestly didn't even know. All I knew is that we had some common friends, and they said that I would like some of your stuff. And I saw you on Twitter, and I saw you had like, you know, it's like mental psychology. I was big into mental psychology, like going into my senior year because of Rex Burkhead with this book called The Mental Edge. And I saw that you were into mental psychology and that you lived in the St. Louis area. And whenever I was getting done with OTAs, I DM'd you on Twitter and was like, hey, is there any way I could pick your brain or we can get on the phone or whatever it was? And you kind of set up. We'll meet at a halfway point every Monday at uh St. Louis Bredco in Arnold. I would drive up from Bonterrey, you'd drive from Clayton, and we'd meet there every Monday, and you'd take me through your worksheets, things that are now probably in that mental toughness. Uh, the is it still called the Mental Toughness Playbook? Yeah. And from there, it's like you're running me through all these things, and it's insane to think we're sitting here right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

I mean, I I I so I I remember, and some of you have heard this story.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

I think it's insane that you went to Arnold. You've been to Arnold, bro.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

He pulls up, he's got a he's got an oversized suit on, he's got a he's got a Mercedes driver. Oh my man, this guy, dude.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Mercedes gonna get popped out there in Arnold, bro.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

I'm like, this dude's gonna give me the he's gonna give me the secret ingredients.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

I sit, I sit down in this booth, and it it really was one of those things. I I joked earlier. I mean, you literally at the first conversation could have been like, man, this isn't going anywhere. I'm never gonna return these guys' calls. And I remember saying to Will, I said, Tell me what's on your mind. And he's like, Man, you know, like got this undrafted free agent contract with the Redskins, but if it doesn't work out with the Redskins, there's 31 other teams. And I was like, man, I got this dude. Like that's and so I asked him the question. I said, Well, what 31 other teams? I said, Man, what would happen if you woke up every day and you just looked in the mirror and you said, I'm a linebacker with the Washington Redskins? And then when you're doubting yourself in the middle of the day, you remind yourself, I'm a linebacker with the Washington Redskins. And then before you go to bed at night, you look in that mirror after you brush your teeth, I'm a linebacker with the Washington Redskins. And 24 hours later, I'm pulling into a lunch appointment at Bristol over on Olive. Like these are all things you don't forget, because it's like these are relationships that change and you don't forget these details. I pull in, I get a text message, and it's from Will 24 hours later, and the text message says, Do you drink coffee? I'm like, Do I drink coffee? Like, what the hell is this text message? And I'm like, Yes. And then he responds, Great post-workout drink. Coffee, whey protein, and honey. And I'm like, okay, I I don't know where this is going. I said, Sounds great, I'll try it. And he responds back. That is what a linebacker with the Washington Redskins drinks. And you literally never look back. And the reason why you're sitting in that chair has nothing to do with me. It was because you get you did give me a chance. But we would have these conversations where you just believed, but then you put the action behind it. And when I went to that first training camp and your hamstring injury, I mean, there's just so many stories we cannot get through them in 16 minutes. And it's always would be a couple of things. Yeah, I got a couple for this. But like it, it's it's it's incredible. But that's why you were there, because it was before we met, all the the mental edge, you believed in those things, but your work ethic and your action and what you learned from your parents is unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Yeah, um, the I want to be a linebacker, I am a linebacker for the Washington Redskins. Fast forward, I got cut. Then I was put on practice squad. Yeah. Um, linebacker for the Washington Redskins. Linebacker, fullback, tight end, whatever they needed me to play. Shanahan, Coach Shanahan almost moved me to fullback because I was playing well on Scout team. And the moment he told me that, hey, have you ever thought about fullback? The next day I started playing as bad as I possibly could. There's a true story. Dude, he saw that never. He started telling me guys that have been linebackers that went to fullback, and I'm thinking, there is no way in hell I want to be a fucking fullback. And just try to block dudes and run into guys like Ray Lewis all the time. But it's legitimately just the other side of the football. It's different, bro. It's different. It's different, dude. Especially that was during the time too. Like obviously the fullback's coming back through a few guys. Uh, but as the fullback was kind of getting weeded out of the league where everything was spread, 11 personnel, you wanted fast tight ends on the field. I was like, oh, if I go to fullback, I'm going to die.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

It's actually, it's actually, it's making a lot of sense now.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

No, the so I'm out, you know, and Will and I were we were text exchanging back and forth, and I'm at my son's baseball game or practice. And he's like, hey, you know, we're banging back and forth a little bit. And then I sent him a message. He's he asked me about uh what do you call him, PT6?

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Papa Team 6, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Like, what about PT6 fit? You know, blah, blah, blah. Hey, it's good timing. Send him a video. I'm like, hey, listen, I got a half marathon in 30 days, the same day you're coming up to speak. And I sent him a video. Why don't you run it with me? We'll we'll seed it. Like, we'll start to seed this PT6 thing. Never heard from me again. Never. You see the track? Oh, yeah. When I saw that. And then you're saying they're not tough enough to be a fullback mentally. It makes sense. It makes sense. Maybe, maybe the mental playbook toughness that we gotta do.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Because when he was like, oh, uh, Sal's running a half marathon right now, he'll be here in an hour. I was like, that's the marathon. You want me to do it today?

Work Comes Before Belief

SPEAKER_01 32:35

I will tell you, one of our core values is belief. And uh I think you know, the word we always say the word what we say here is the work comes before the belief. But there's a you know, and I don't want to say the fake it till you make it because that's not what it is, it's an understanding that your brain's got to be prepared to be there first, you know? And in the work, the work ethic of you have to act as if. And I think the act as if is like you don't start the habits once you get the job, you create the habits to get the job. And I think that's a misunderstood concept, you know, in life, whether it's sports, whether it's being a great dad or husband, being a great business leader, bringing being a great teammate. Like, what do these people do that make them great? I have to start this now in order to do that myself. So the the work comes before the belief, and it's why it's one of our core values. I think it's an important lesson in life.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Dude, that's a phenomenal point. I was bringing up Rex Burke in that book called The Mental Edge. And when I read that, my senior or going into my senior year, as I'm diving into sports psychology kind of for the first time, I'm realizing like in this book, as it's laying out all these different frameworks, all these different ways to think and self-talk, X, Y, and Z, I realized as I'm reading the book that I was using my brain as more of a disadvantage than I was like using it as a belief factor or as an advantage. Because what you think you do become, like the law of attraction stuff, yeah, you you can't just think stuff and it'll happen. But as far as like rewiring your brain, like I would be a guy who, if I knew I was gonna be man-to-man on the back, and the quarterback would hit him out in the flat, and I would have space between me and the back. My brain would be, I would get anxiety thinking about it because I'm doubting if I can make a play in space on the back. But learning that in the mental edge of knowing that I am thinking this stuff, and then I'm worried about Coach Pellini chewing my ass out on this on the sideline, I'm learning in real time that I'm using that as a disadvantage, like for myself. I'm not putting any intention or a belief system into just rewiring the way I think and self-talk to myself. And I feel like that book helped me with when I was going into pro day because I wasn't a combine guy, I had a sport tourniot, so I couldn't really train at full capacity. But creating the environment and doing like vision work and trying to smell the smells that would be in the indoor facility, what does the turf feel like under my fingers? What is the vibe gonna be of nerves, of scouts sitting at the end of the 40-yard dash and throughout the throughout the environment the entire day? And like going through all those reps mentally before you even get on the field to know that you have done as much as you can to, I've ran this rep, I've ran this 40 a thousand times before you actually run it. Uh, but that whole belief system and thinking about it before it happens, I dude, uh that's a great point. I fully believe in that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

I want to bring some up because I mean I've heard it from you, but and I knowing what you normally deliver in the afternoons, you're probably not gonna bring it up. How did you take? Because a lot of people don't realize this. We did talk about it in your office yesterday, just parenting, and how do we how do we deal with our kids and them taking ownership of wanting to work hard? And do you try to coach them or you know, get them the coaches that they need so you can just enjoy being a parent? And and you talked about your athletic career, which was a professional athletic career. A lot of people don't realize. I mean, this guy What do you do? Because I don't realize you wouldn't know because you never pick up the phone. You know, he was in the Cardinals organization, and it was really a career-ending injury. He would have been a professional baseball player. And so if you could take us, because I think for everybody, there's some people who are thriving in their businesses right now, some people who are in the middle of challenge going, okay, if I'm gonna do the unrequired, it's in a pivot that I'm gonna have to make. How in the world did you pivot? Because you talk about discipline unrequired, a pivot of you going from a, and you could talk about the injury, but you know, a traumatic career-ending injury, your dream is to be a baseball player, to now sitting here. I mean, you talk about like where you probably sit sometimes and go, how the hell am I sitting in this chair in this headquarters?

Career Ending Injury And The Pivot

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

I'm actually thinking it right now. The um, no, I mean, I I I've done what a lot of people have done in some capacities. So I I you know you train your whole life, right? Uh I was a high school athlete. There's a three-sport athlete. Well, tail back. Tail back. Uh I wasn't afraid to run the ball. The um I I just think it like, you know, you spend your whole life training for something, right? Because trying to become the best of the best or the best in class. And I was a good athlete. I had a great, I had a great dad who always taught, he always told us, like, you could be anything you want to be in life as long as you're willing to work for it. And I was never the most athletic, but I was like I would outwork you, and that was my thing. Like, even to this day, like I'm gonna be there for the work. Like, I'm gonna get dirty, I'm gonna play it, and that's what's gonna happen. And, you know, you play, went to high school, got a couple offers, played division one baseball, you know, had had a pretty good career. I had to play in the Cape Cod League, do some really cool stuff, then I got drafted, played in a cardinal organization. And I think what happened to me is I didn't have anybody, my dad was like, he did a great job champion for me until you get to a certain level, and then the dad can't do it anymore, right? And I think that's what I, you know, where do I sit in there currently with my kids? But I didn't have anybody to kind of guide me to the next level or the or to kind of point me in a direction to that next point. I think what happened for me is because I got to the minor leagues, and you know, you start you start like acting as if you're a big leaguer, but really you're on a practice squad, and that's how the minor leagues will work. And so I didn't respect the game, is really what happened. And I was more worried about going out at night and chasing chasing everything and everything. And it would be Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and I was I was I've always I've been a captain of every single team that I played on my entire career, except my freshman year in college. And I was always a good locker room guy, get him out all night, I'd have fun with them. And hell, we had a hundred guys run the half marathon this morning. Like I've always been an aggregator of people. But what happened is I was not I was not doing what Will was talking about there. I was more acting as if I was a big leaguer when I was in the minor leagues, and and I and I robbed it. And I this is how I mean I've believed deeply in God, and I think I think that you know, I had a collision at home plate, you know, it was career-ending injury, and you know, you worked 20,000 hours, 40,000 hours, I don't know how many hours you worked your entire life to get to that point, and it was done just like that. And you know, you have to do a lot of soul searching that next year, 18 months, two years, it's a it's a long journey. And um I think it was taken away from me because I wasn't paying the sport the respect that it needed or earned or I deserved or it deserved to be able to get to the next level. And so they took it from me. And I had a lot of soul searching I had to do in those next two years, which you know, a lot of people, and I can tell you, I went through the whole pain pill, baboo's, you know, trying to cycle my way out of it, and I had to get my head right. And I went and sold, I mean you gotta imagine, right? So I went from being a St. Louis Cardinal as a St. Louis kid. I worked out in the offseason with Albert Pools and Ryan Howard and Mike Matheney, who's still my mentor today, uh Kerry Robinson, these are guys like all Hall of Famers, and you know, then you just don't get to go back. And the next day I got a job and I was selling copiers. So I'd go to Joseph A. Banks and buy three suits for like 200 bucks a piece. And you'd go to a bar. So just envision this. Six months earlier, I'm at a bar, and I'd be like, what do you do? I'm a professional baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals. It's a pretty good game. It's a pretty easy card. You just kind of you know, hello. And uh, what are you doing tomorrow? Well, I'm actually gonna go hit with Albert and we're gonna go get lunch, you know, and work out, you know, maybe the greatest player to ever play the game. What are you doing? You know? Uh to what do you do? I'm gonna go. I sell copiers. It was like such a like such a blow to the ego. And you can bitch about it or you can be about it. And that's the attitude I took. And so from that day forth, it was like, I remember, I'll never forget, like, that's one thing too, and we'll we'll will know this. When you're in professional sports, like when you go to when you get into pain land, like the doctors give you anything. So I had to have a really strong conversation with myself after that. But it when I started to take life serious and really started to pay it the dues that it deserved, it was a long-term play, but then it started rewarding me for reinvesting back in. And so it taught me a really good lesson, whether it's business, whether it's my marriage, kind of a fantastic marriage, I'm extremely proud of, whether it's being a dad. Uh, you know, I don't know if I'm a good one or not, but I try like hell. I think you know, it's about making sure you're making the deposits, not the withdrawals. And continuing to understand that life is about depositing and focus on the deposits, and the withdrawals happen, and you have to give to get. And so I've changed my entire focus versus being extremely cent centered on myself, you know, to making it about the the the front of the jersey, not the back. And so, you know, for me, that journey was honestly like it, and we'll see it on the tour, the jersey at the collision at home plate that I was wearing still has the dirt on it, still has IBLAC on it, still has Pine Tar on it. I hung it on my wall because I walked in. I want to walk into my office every single day and realize that was the best day of my life. The day I broke my leg was the best day of my life. And a lot of people will will wear on that. They'll say, you know what? You know, think, oh, I could have been, I could have thrown these football over the mountains, you know, and like their whole life, like give hitting lessons the rest of their life and tell a story about how great they weren't. I just wasn't gonna be that dude. And so I hang it when I walk in my office every day as a reminder, like you didn't get you didn't pay the game the respect you deserve, and that's what it gave you is the best day of my life. And here I am.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

When you got to the uh the part where you said I can either bitch about it or be about it, was that like uh was that just a conversation you had with yourself, or did something happen that put you in that spot to where it was I have to sink or swim?

SPEAKER_01 42:38

It was like a transfer.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Versus like you overcame your own, like, okay, I'm gonna stop doing the pill, I'm gonna stop doing all this bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Yeah, it was it was very much like you know, you self-loathe, right? That's what happens. Everybody has it at a point in time in their life, you put a victim mentality for yourself. And I it was like a long drawn-out process, right? So you get released, you know, you you're kind of like you go from being the coolest fucking guy that all your friends know to everybody's calling you, uh you know, texting, checking in on you, you're on the newspaper, you're on the board at the Bush Stadium to legitimately you get released. Nobody calls you, right? Nobody asks you to do anything. I didn't I never played for I never paid for golf, I didn't pay for a bar tab, I didn't pay for anything. So the next day you're just like a regular human. You know? And that was like a really hard thing to digest. And you you start to self-loathe through it and you start to process it, and you start to believe, you know, you start to believe all the shit. And I remember just sitting, it wasn't like a day, but I can just remember being like, hey man, this is where you're at. Like, you want to get out of it. The only person can get you out of it is you. And I lived at 10592 Roxana Drive. I paid $192,000 for that house. I still drive by it every once in a while. And I remember sitting in there and that's when I started taking life seriously. So I put built a vision board. This is my built a vision board in my office and Started thinking about, you know, what do I want out of life? What am I gonna try to get to? And what I wanna what do I want to have? And and you know, one foot in front of the other. Got my head right, started working in the right direction, and you know, continue to make deposits. Continuing, you know, then I got a different job than we started first form and continue to make deposits. And I still try to take the same mindset today. Deposit. Try to play, keep, keep giving, keep giving. And at some point in time, hopefully I'll I'll make that withdrawal. I love that, man.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

I uh one of the things that I continue to just be blown away by is how First Forum continues to give and to make it about others and to serve. And so Sal and a couple members of their team are gonna take you guys on a special tour, behind the scenes tour of this unbelievable facility. And I just I encourage you guys to pay attention to the details.

The Donation And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_00 44:52

You think about like an unrequired mindset doing the extra. I mean, it bleeds through this entire organization, but you're gonna see a wall, and it's uh 30 for the kids. And I know Sal's gonna talk about it, but we sat in his office yesterday and he got emotional talking about the first child that he adopted in Haiti, his name was Marcos, and there's a picture behind his desk of his family, and then this little boy Marcos, which is now turned into uh 30 for the kids, where they just continue to you know educate and feed, you know, children in Haiti. And that's just one of the things that this organization does to make the world a better place. So I just admire the deposits that you make. Um, and I just wanted you to know, I I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before the tour, I typically do it after, but it's hitting me to do it. Everything that we do as an organization, we always want to give back in order to support. So I just want you all to know when you look at that wall, or if you get a chance to look at Marcos on his shelf, uh, all of you, as a result of us doing this together, it isn't, you know, our company making the donation. All of us together, this community, uh, has made a $20,000 donation from today in order to support your work with 30 for the kids. So uh it's our way of saying thank you to you for having some help.

Haiti, 30 For The Kids, And A We Mentality

SPEAKER_01 46:12

I uh I know we're over on time here, but I just want to double-click down there because I think about you know the gift that God has given all of us, you know, and and I think when I went to Haiti for the first time, it really was um it was an extremely eye-opening experience just understanding that you know we've been gifted with so much. And our friend Tim Grover. Do you know Tim? I know of Tim, yeah. Got it. I mean you were name-dropping a lot earlier, so I just didn't know if you know what I mean. The uh Tim Grover has uh Tim Grover has You know I backed up London Fletcher, right? I do. I do. The uh Tim has a Tim has a really good uh way of saying, like, hey, if we were all you're sitting around and you put everybody puts their problems on the table, you'll quickly pull your problems right back, and I'll take these. And he's been a very inspirational person to my life. And when I went to Haiti, you know what happens when you start having a little bit of success, you start kind of having these made-up problems that you have. You know, I got and they're real problems, but it's just kind of bullshit. And uh I went to Haiti at the right time. It was a really good like crossroads for me. Our business was doing well, I was married, I had kids, I were healthy, and I remember going down the street. No, these people have nothing. It's the poorest country in the world. And a friend of ours had started an orphanage down there, and he asked me to go down on a mission trip, and there's one little boy, and he was run, he was he actually not he was not fortunate enough to be in the orphanage. He was outside the orphanage, and down there in Haiti to be in the orphanage is actually an upgrade in life because it knows it knows that you're gonna likely at least make it and be fed. And this little boy was outside the orphanage, he was just running up and down the street, man. He had slides, underwear, t-shirt, a stick, and a motorcycle tire. And he's making this little noise, and I still watch the video to this day, you know, and it's I always believe that like God talks to you in these weird ways. They're just like little nudges. And this little boy is just the biggest smile you've ever seen in your entire life, going up and down the street, you know, playing with this little motorcycle tire uh motorcycle tire. And he just smiled and looked at me, and I was sitting there thinking, like, man, I got it so good. Like, I don't have problems. And nobody's championed for this little boy. And so I went on the trip and I got back and we started 30 for the kids. And 30 for the kids in the last, because of people like you, in the last seven years has raised over five million dollars. But we feed uh food, water, shelter, medical attention, we take care of the entire orphanage. It's 47 children plus staff. We now employ all the school teachers for the community. We have 300 kids that come to school every single day, that get fed every single day. We're able to pick up the food or the hospital bills, the general maintenance for these kids on a weekly basis. You know, as we know, if you have kids that get sick. And, you know, it's because of our community. And it's not because of me, it's not because of one person, it's because it's we. And when you have a we over me mentality and you approach it in life, life gets a lot easier because the lift gets a lot lighter whenever we're all working in one direction. And so, um, I was telling Ben yesterday, like, I, you know, sometimes you don't know if you're doing good or not, right? Like you're going through life and you're just like, fuck man, I don't know if I'm doing good. I'm trying like hell, but I don't know. And uh, you know, I just I keep Marco's picture behind my desk as one of my children. I only have my kids up there and my wife and this little boy, because he dynamically changed changed the trajectory of my life because of how he impacted how I think about things. And I don't really have problems, I have situations. And those people have problems. And you know, as a result, we've he's got 11 brothers and sisters. We got them all into the orphanage, and we built my house, and we're but that little boy and that little smile has pumped almost five million dollars into that community where we now like built the school and the house, and people come in and we're pouring tons of money into it. But that little dude has supported not only the 350 kids, but all their parents and everything we feed, we feed them all, and we have this whole block of infrastructure. But the reason I share that is because you never know the power that that one that you can have over one person and one person can have over you, or the impact of your community, or your culture, or your company. And it's extremely, extremely important to make sure that you're just paying attention because I think God gives you a little nudge every once in a while, and you gotta be listening. So I just wanted to to give you a little context that that $20,000 will go a very long way. 100% of the funds that are raised for 30 for the kids makes it makes its way to the kids. I do all of the infrastructure out of first form so where there's no overhead that happens is 30 for the kids, and and I just feel it's the right thing to do. And I just want to greatly appreciate not only having you guys here, but Ben and your generosity as as an organization to be able to help those children.

Gratitude And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 50:58

So thank you for that.