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Speaker 3: All right, guys, welcome back still in LA. This is
Speaker 3: gonna be a legendary episode. This is something that came organically.
Speaker 3: So if you're a football fan, obviously you know who
Speaker 3: Bobby Wagner is. I just found out actually has a
Speaker 3: ninety one percent chance to be a I.
Speaker 5: Think he just found out found out to.
Speaker 3: Ninety one percent chance to be a first ballot Hall
Speaker 3: of Famer. Nine years in the league, Troy, you run
Speaker 3: down on the status.
Speaker 2: Nine years in the league, seven time pro bowler, six
Speaker 2: time All Pro, five years consecutively all pro.
Speaker 5: UH rating Matter ninety nine.
Speaker 3: That's probably the most impressive thing of all time. Ninety
Speaker 3: nine rating every man. That's extremely rare.
Speaker 2: And we got to talk to the people that he gave.
Speaker 2: They started doing to the change after So either Bobby's
Speaker 2: gonna have to do it again or they're gonna have
Speaker 2: to be in Burston for the time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we can do both.
Speaker 3: So he's a ninety nine rating and Matter perfect player.
Speaker 3: But even more impressive is what he's doing off the court,
Speaker 3: off the field. So he's as a venture capital company,
Speaker 3: he's an angel investor, he interned at Microsoft Forbes thirty
Speaker 3: under thirty, and he represents himself big time. So this
Speaker 3: is a this is going to be a dope conversation.
Speaker 3: So first and foremost, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.
Speaker 5: YEA, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 5: I've been watching you'all for a minute, man, and it's
Speaker 5: cool to be on the show, be a part of
Speaker 5: this and excited to have a conversation with you guys.
Speaker 5: Let's do it. Let's do it.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about this financial literacy situation. So you're
Speaker 3: playing for Seattle. You played for Seattle your whole career, right, Arguably,
Speaker 3: this is the greatest player that's ever played for Seattle, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I told you it's you and Russ both y'all
Speaker 2: the statue.
Speaker 5: I'm good with that.
Speaker 3: So you're playing for Seattle, and anybody knows Seattle. You know,
Speaker 3: one of the biggest things that ever come out of Seattle,
Speaker 3: probably the biggest thing is Microsoft. So you in turn
Speaker 3: at Microsoft talk about that.
Speaker 5: Seattle was kind of doing this thing where they were
Speaker 5: offering like different internships within the city and Microsoft just
Speaker 5: so happened to be one. And you know, out of
Speaker 5: all of the ones that I got to choose from,
Speaker 5: I chose Microsoft because you know, you know, for obvious reasons,
Speaker 5: and I just felt like I was gonna grow more,
Speaker 5: learn more there. So I went and I did an
Speaker 5: intern there, and crazy enough, we was all sitting in
Speaker 5: the middle of the lobby. We were all in the lobby,
Speaker 5: chilling the lobby, and we're waiting for the CFO to
Speaker 5: come down to talk to us. And I'm not really
Speaker 5: familiar with everybody that works in and out of Microsoft
Speaker 5: at this time. I think it's like two thousand and fifteen.
Speaker 5: I don't forgot when it was. And you know, I'm
Speaker 5: talking to this lady and we having like a crazy conversation.
Speaker 5: We're talking about all types of stuff, and she's like,
Speaker 5: man like, so what was everybody waiting for? And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 5: we're waiting for the CFO to come and come and
Speaker 5: talk to us. She's like, Okay, well, I guess we
Speaker 5: should get this started. And she like backside of our
Speaker 5: conversation and says, hey, everybody, like, welcome to the internship.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, I've been talking to her for like
Speaker 5: thirty minutes. I had no idea she have an idea
Speaker 5: who you are? I mean, maybe I don't know. I'm
Speaker 5: assuming so she was the CFO. CFO, yeah, name is
Speaker 5: Amy Hood, and well.
Speaker 3: I just little unpacked out a little bit. You never
Speaker 3: know who you're talking to. So you were talking to
Speaker 3: somebody and you told them waiting for the CFO to come,
Speaker 3: and she just played along with it. Yeah, she's just
Speaker 3: she's yeah, she knew who Yeah she was she was
Speaker 3: thing bad about the CFO.
Speaker 5: Yeah. It was crazy because it was just like, you know,
Speaker 5: that's what you'll wait for. Okay, let's let's start it off. Thing.
Speaker 2: I'm interested even further because how many people, especially rookies
Speaker 2: at the time, this is like your first first.
Speaker 5: Year, second Oh no, this was like my third year,
Speaker 5: I think, so even that.
Speaker 2: Like, how many people who are now full fledged because
Speaker 2: you were ready, I won the Super Bowl?
Speaker 5: Yeah, in your third year are willing to.
Speaker 2: Even take an internship? Right? How many you said that
Speaker 2: Seattle had some choices, but how many of your teammates
Speaker 2: took advantage of that?
Speaker 5: I would say for most of the league, not many.
Speaker 5: But our team was different. We was all into different things.
Speaker 5: And if you look at like the things that we've accomplished,
Speaker 5: you had multiple guys from that team negotiate their own contract.
Speaker 5: Mike Bennett was a number one selling offer, Cliff Averril
Speaker 5: done amazing things. Cam you know, has his own clothing line.
Speaker 5: So we were you could just tell like our group
Speaker 5: was different, like we thought different and so like from
Speaker 5: the league perspective, it was not many, but from our team,
Speaker 5: we was always interested in doing something like we wanted
Speaker 5: to be great athletes, great players. We wanted to be
Speaker 5: bigger than just you know, just good players. We wanted
Speaker 5: to be able to do something that was going to
Speaker 5: impact the city that we came from, in the city
Speaker 5: that we was in.
Speaker 3: So what did you learn in Microsoft and how did
Speaker 3: that help you in your in your career business.
Speaker 5: I think the biggest thing that I learned was just
Speaker 5: I learned the ins and outs. You know, I learned
Speaker 5: a lot. I did the financing part, so they offered,
Speaker 5: like you can learn about gaming financing certain things. So
Speaker 5: I went to the financial world. So I just sat
Speaker 5: there and watched them do numbers all day, and it
Speaker 5: was it was crazy because I was just like, you
Speaker 5: never know how much that they got going on, because
Speaker 5: they got to control every single entity within the whole thing,
Speaker 5: like x from Xbox to Microsoft, Word to everything. So
Speaker 5: I got to to learn about that. And really the
Speaker 5: biggest thing that came from that was, you know, I
Speaker 5: developed an amazing relationship with Amy, and you know, we're
Speaker 5: now like close friends and she's helped me a lot,
Speaker 5: opened a lot of doors for me, you know, talk
Speaker 5: to me a lot about what she does on a
Speaker 5: day to day basis. And you know, so the biggest thing,
Speaker 5: I think, outside of what I learned in the finances
Speaker 5: was the relationships that I've developed while I was there.
Speaker 2: Steve Boma was the CEO at that time. Did you
Speaker 2: ever run into.
Speaker 5: I actually did connect with him, but I connected with him.
Speaker 5: He wasn't there when I was there, but I connected
Speaker 5: with him later. Because you know, when I start telling
Speaker 5: people I wanted to do my contract, they started connecting
Speaker 5: me with different people because I wanted a different perspectives.
Speaker 5: I didn't just want agent perspective, players perspective. I wanted
Speaker 5: people who who had you know, ownership and teams and
Speaker 5: things like that. I wanted to see, like what they
Speaker 5: thought about players or what they were looking for when
Speaker 5: a player came in and negotiate his own contract.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So twenty twelve was your rookie year.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 2: But there was a trip to Silicon Valley that kind
Speaker 2: of changed it. Perspective. Always were interested in the business aspect.
Speaker 2: I believe your wealth manager took you to yeah, Silicon
Speaker 2: to see what this is all about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so experience. Yeah, so I didn't even know what
Speaker 5: Silicon Valley was until until that trip. Like I knew,
Speaker 5: I heard, I knew like San Francisco was the area,
Speaker 5: but I didn't know about Silicon Valley. So he took
Speaker 5: me down. He took me down on the trip probably
Speaker 5: like two thousand and thirteen or fourteen, and we just
Speaker 5: toured like all different types of startups. A couple of
Speaker 5: startups we toured was an Instacart, we saw them pretty early,
Speaker 5: and we toured another company called, uh it was I
Speaker 5: forgot what the company name was, but I ended up
Speaker 5: investing in that company. But you know, we didn't win
Speaker 5: on that one. But you know, so I just started
Speaker 5: to get exposed into, like, you know, certain things. And
Speaker 5: that's when I realized the term, like what the term
Speaker 5: was angel investor was. I didn't even know what that
Speaker 5: was either. And so I'm like, all right, now I'm
Speaker 5: getting exposed into two different things. Find out what you know.
Speaker 5: I sat with different vcs while I was out there,
Speaker 5: just you know, asking questions. I sat with different investors
Speaker 5: while I was down there, and then so it just
Speaker 5: kind of opened me up to this whole world that
Speaker 5: I hadn't nothing. I knew nothing about and so once
Speaker 5: I got exposed to that, then I just try to
Speaker 5: you know, see how much I give hands on.
Speaker 3: So I want to talk about this VC situation, but
Speaker 3: let's talk about football for a little bit, as far
Speaker 3: as you represent yourself, if I'm not mistaken, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: So like, let's let's talk about this. You came in
Speaker 3: the league, you had an agent. At some point, I'm
Speaker 3: assuming you fired your agent and you decided to be
Speaker 3: your own agent.
Speaker 5: Yep. Why did you do that?
Speaker 3: And what was the process of negotiating your You're the
Speaker 3: highest paid inside linebacker in NFL history yep. Fifty four
Speaker 3: million dollars yep. Three years, three years, three years, twenty
Speaker 3: four guarantee, not bad.
Speaker 5: Forty guaranteed, forty guaranteed, Yeah, twenty four as signing.
Speaker 3: You negotiated that contract?
Speaker 5: I did.
Speaker 3: Congratulations, Thank you, appreciate it. And you're almost done. You
Speaker 3: next year, you'll finish that. Yeah, I got after this year.
Speaker 5: I have one year left and typically if the team
Speaker 5: was to keep you there, you know, extend you.
Speaker 2: Now we're going for the message. Yeah, I don't play yourself.
Speaker 2: Don't play it.
Speaker 3: So wrgeous and you so, and God willing everything works
Speaker 3: out this year you and get all your money, Yeah,
Speaker 3: all of it. So talk about negotiating your contract and
Speaker 3: why you decided to let your agent go and become
Speaker 3: your own agent.
Speaker 5: I just think it was a process, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. I think when I first came into when
Speaker 5: I was a rookie, I actually had a couple of agents,
Speaker 5: you know. I think, you know, I had let my
Speaker 5: my original agent go, like probably like either midway through
Speaker 5: my rookie year or right after my rookie year, and
Speaker 5: I just was looking for something. I look, I was
Speaker 5: looking for someone who's gonna keep their word. I was
Speaker 5: trying to figure that out. But then in the process
Speaker 5: of figuring that out, I started to realize I was like,
Speaker 5: this is something that kind of mimicked or was kind
Speaker 5: of like in the same way where I was at,
Speaker 5: like wanted to be in business and I just wanted
Speaker 5: to have a seat at the table. And I knew
Speaker 5: I wasn't gonna be able to do that having an agent,
Speaker 5: like they would let me in the room. But I knew,
Speaker 5: like once I walked away, I knew there was gonna
Speaker 5: be conra sestions that was going to be had that
Speaker 5: I wasn't going to be involved in, and so I
Speaker 5: wanted to make sure I eliminated all that. So I
Speaker 5: wanted them to talk to me directly. I wanted to
Speaker 5: do it for myself, and you know, really I felt
Speaker 5: like it was going to to spark my my way
Speaker 5: through business. And you know, I felt like if I
Speaker 5: wasn't willing to take a chance on myself with my contract,
Speaker 5: then I wouldn't be able to take a chance in
Speaker 5: the real world. And so, you know, I just started learning.
Speaker 5: Literally right after I signed my my second deal, you know,
Speaker 5: I grabbed the CBA and I read it. Read the CBA.
Speaker 5: Then I started reading different negotiation books. I started reading,
Speaker 5: looking at every linebacker contract, looking at all the contracts
Speaker 5: that to see I had done over the last ten
Speaker 5: years since Pete Carroll had been there, And you know,
Speaker 5: I just started learning. And so you know, I knew
Speaker 5: it was coming, and you know, once it was my
Speaker 5: time to negotiat my deal, I you know, I was ready.
Speaker 5: And you know, I think I'm surprised them when I
Speaker 5: walk into the room because I think they they didn't
Speaker 5: think I had put this much thought into it. So
Speaker 5: I don't think they knew. I knew what I was
Speaker 5: supposed to know.
Speaker 2: What was that feeling like when obviously most people say
Speaker 2: represent yourself, represent yourself, but now you're negotiating on your
Speaker 2: own behalf and the team might feel like you're worth
Speaker 2: a different value than what you were thinking. What are
Speaker 2: those conversations, like, what's your thought process when we're going
Speaker 2: through that.
Speaker 5: I think the biggest thing is you got to put
Speaker 5: your emotions. You know, you got to put your emotions
Speaker 5: behind you, like business is not emotional, and so I
Speaker 5: think that was their biggest fear, was not being able
Speaker 5: to say how they truly felt and they because they
Speaker 5: was going to piss me off or something like that.
Speaker 5: So like one of the first means we had I
Speaker 5: was like, look like we all grow men, and so
Speaker 5: you know, I want you to treat this negotiation like
Speaker 5: it was an agent. So you got something that you
Speaker 5: got something that you feel I can't do or you
Speaker 5: want to say, say it like, don't sugarcoat anything, like
Speaker 5: we all grown men. At the end of the day,
Speaker 5: I got respect for you. I felt like y'all got
Speaker 5: respect for me. So you know, if there's two lines
Speaker 5: of respect and we can get something done, in a
Speaker 5: respectful way, and I wasn't really into the whole negotiation
Speaker 5: through the media, so I was like, I'm not trying
Speaker 5: to y'all. Don't take no shot at me in the media.
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna take no shot at you guys in
Speaker 5: the media, and we can get this thing done real quiet,
Speaker 5: and it could be big. It could be something that can,
Speaker 5: you know, hopefully spark interest of players. And you know,
Speaker 5: it was cool. I mean, they told me how they felt.
Speaker 5: I told them how I felt. I had numbers to
Speaker 5: back up why I felt I was deserving of what
Speaker 5: I was asking for, and they had stuff that they had,
Speaker 5: and it was genuine conversations. And obviously it was some
Speaker 5: moments where I felt like I was winning, and then
Speaker 5: there was some moments where I felt like I got
Speaker 5: to go back to the drawing board. But ultimately we
Speaker 5: ended up where we was at and got it done.
Speaker 2: Were you originally thinking based on your performance? Obviously, I
Speaker 2: don't know how many linebackers can match your stats. You're
Speaker 2: thinking I need to be the highest guy. Was that
Speaker 2: one of the things.
Speaker 5: Well, I was, you know, a run in the league.
Speaker 5: You know, you consider the best, So I want to
Speaker 5: be paid top dollars. So you know, if around the
Speaker 5: league you consider the best, I think you your pay
Speaker 5: shit should mimic that or mirror that. So that was it.
Speaker 5: That's how I approached it. Shout out to Brandon Copeland.
Speaker 3: We interviewed him a while ago and he kind of
Speaker 3: broke down NFL contracts for us. It's very complicated situations
Speaker 3: where it's like most of the money is not guaranteed,
Speaker 3: and you have signing bonus, and you have incentives built
Speaker 3: in if you make it to like the Pro Bowl.
Speaker 3: So can you kind of explain that because the average
Speaker 3: I feel like the average fan just watches it and
Speaker 3: they hey, okay, he got a fifty million dollar contract.
Speaker 3: He had fifty million dollars, a lot of money. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of moving part and you being an agent, now, well, first,
Speaker 3: did you have to get licensed to be an agent
Speaker 3: or no, you're a player. You just represent yourself? YEA,
Speaker 3: represent yourself. So can you break that down as far
Speaker 3: as like some of the terms, like the signing bonus,
Speaker 3: what's guaranteed, what's not guaranteed, stuff like that.
Speaker 5: So I definitely feel like the NFL contract is probably
Speaker 5: one of the most complicated contracts because you know, I
Speaker 5: feel like in every other league, I don't I'm not,
Speaker 5: I don't know for sure, but every other league, what
Speaker 5: you see is what you get. So if somebody signs
Speaker 5: for X amount of years for one hundred million dollars,
Speaker 5: they don't get that over whatever life of the deal.
Speaker 5: But with the league, you know, with the NFL, it's
Speaker 5: all fluff. So you kind of like you see the
Speaker 5: contract the initial numbers, then you got to see what
Speaker 5: the actual numbers are. And so somebody can sign for
Speaker 5: fifty million dollars for forty guaranteed, but the at signing
Speaker 5: is really the real number. Like that's what you're walking
Speaker 5: away with if they decide to walk away from you.
Speaker 5: So if you get if it's like twenty four million
Speaker 5: dollars at signing bonus when you if they was to
Speaker 5: walk away from you, that's what you get, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. Everything else you have to hit certain things.
Speaker 5: So there's all different type of things in the contract.
Speaker 5: Like you said, signing bonus, your signing bonus is a
Speaker 5: part of it. You know, you have different per games,
Speaker 5: different incentives. So one of the things in my deal,
Speaker 5: you know, I had like roster bonuses that roster bonuses
Speaker 5: is basically like what they give you they like basically
Speaker 5: it's a way to kind of for the team to
Speaker 5: kind of stretch their money over the signing bonus or
Speaker 5: stretch their money over the the cap. So a certain
Speaker 5: amount of money that you get for being on the
Speaker 5: team each year. So I was when I.
Speaker 2: Was looking at your sports track, I know, because you
Speaker 2: said you use that when you were looking at everybody's contract,
Speaker 2: I saw amount of plays and so even part of
Speaker 2: that that game thing is there as certain amount of
Speaker 2: snaps you have to be in the game for it
Speaker 2: to count in the contract.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's there's certain there's certain guys where it's like
Speaker 5: you got to play ninety percent of your snaps or
Speaker 5: eighty percent of your snaps, or you know, you see
Speaker 5: towards the end of the season, these guys get these
Speaker 5: huge bonuses where you know, if you get nine ten sacks,
Speaker 5: then you get an extra two fifty. So you see
Speaker 5: the guys like you know, normally you see a guy
Speaker 5: like not play the last game when they don't need
Speaker 5: in the playoffs, but he'll play that game so he
Speaker 5: can get that extra two fifty. So they can come
Speaker 5: up with all different types of ways to put the
Speaker 5: the bonuses in there. So it really just depends on
Speaker 5: the team how they structure the team, because no team
Speaker 5: structures deals the same, so you really got to study,
Speaker 5: you know, the team and the person who's the way
Speaker 5: they do the contracts because you could be asking for
Speaker 5: something that they haven't given in like twenty years or
Speaker 5: ten years or whatever. So you know, I knew it.
Speaker 5: It was kind of like easier for me because I
Speaker 5: knew who I was going up against or I knew
Speaker 5: who I was negotiating with. But if I was a
Speaker 5: free agent, it'll have been different because you have to
Speaker 5: know each person on each team and how they structure
Speaker 5: each deal. How was it.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because we spoke to Brandon. He was he
Speaker 3: got cut a few times.
Speaker 5: Like he was.
Speaker 3: I don't know if he got did he get drafted.
Speaker 5: I think he got drafted his past that was different
Speaker 5: than your pinions. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It's like he was probably the average player. It goes
Speaker 3: to as far as getting cut, trying to make a
Speaker 3: team on a team like kind of a journeyman situation.
Speaker 3: You are a superstar, So how is it in the lack.
Speaker 2: Of room from.
Speaker 3: Being a superstar and being a regular player financially, all
Speaker 3: of that stuff. Like we watch these movies and it's like,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, superstars always.
Speaker 5: Get cheated by the guys. Like, you know what I'm saying, how.
Speaker 3: Is it so I was watching the game, How is
Speaker 3: that they rolled the red carpet out for you?
Speaker 5: Nah? I mean it depends on where you at. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think Seattle, we always treated everybody equal. So outside
Speaker 5: of you know, outside of whatever you purchase, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying. The lifestyle obviously is different, you know,
Speaker 5: depending on but unless you're trying to keep up. You know,
Speaker 5: you could be a guy who was undrafted but want
Speaker 5: to come across as living that lifestyle. So you can
Speaker 5: blend in and see that. But for me personally, I
Speaker 5: was never really someone that was caught up in the lifestyle.
Speaker 5: I was never about the lifestyle. I wasn't interested in.
Speaker 5: I was just interested in and you know, prove myself,
Speaker 5: like proving stuff to myself. So you know, I still
Speaker 5: drive the same car I bought in twenty twelve. Nice car,
Speaker 5: same car, this one. No, this was different, but I
Speaker 5: had I had, I got an OUTI in addition, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: but they pull up. But again though it's different vibes. Though.
Speaker 5: I bought that in my ninth year, so I had
Speaker 5: already put my money away. I already earned your Leasha, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I earned my leisure. I knew, I got my money
Speaker 5: saved the way, so now I can play. And I
Speaker 5: feel like that's what's like backwards. Like guys in the
Speaker 5: league do it backwards. They buy the whips to impress
Speaker 5: the people, they buy the houses to impress the people,
Speaker 5: and they either play five let's say a God place
Speaker 5: five years. Maybe maybe let's just hypothetically say an example
Speaker 5: God places five years. So he got the crazy car,
Speaker 5: he got the crazy house, he got the you know,
Speaker 5: crazy lifestyle, but didn't save his money over time. So
Speaker 5: now when he retires, he got to downgrade everything. Now
Speaker 5: he got to turn the car back in. Now he
Speaker 5: got to down downgrade the house. Now you got to
Speaker 5: downgrade the lifestyle. So it's I just flipped it. So
Speaker 5: I just lived a really chill life and I didn't
Speaker 5: buy anything crazy. I don't think I bought my house
Speaker 5: until like two years ago. I was renting until that point. Uh,
Speaker 5: you know, I really just took care of everybody else
Speaker 5: around me. Before I took care of myself and so
Speaker 5: I was doing that. But once I had got to
Speaker 5: three deal, it's my third deal. So I got my
Speaker 5: third deal. Then I bought the stuff for myself because
Speaker 5: now it's like I was disciplined early on. Now I
Speaker 5: get to enjoy my fruits of my labor now, and
Speaker 5: I don't have to downsize whenever I retired, I don't
Speaker 5: my life can. I've saved enough for my life to
Speaker 5: be the same as it is today for years to come. Now.
Speaker 3: That's that's what you're saying really resonates with me because
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff, like even now to this day,
Speaker 3: like people ask me, even my mom as like are
Speaker 3: you going to do this?
Speaker 5: When you're going to do this?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, it's not any time yet, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, Like I feel like I could do
Speaker 3: any a lot of stuff that I want to do
Speaker 3: financially right now, but I'm not because I feel like
Speaker 3: it like in a couple of.
Speaker 5: Years, it'll just be way greater.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and by that time, I have invested so much
Speaker 3: money that it won't even matter, Like it won't even
Speaker 3: hurt me at all. Like yeah, So The delayed gratification
Speaker 3: is something that especially for athletes, like you know, you're
Speaker 3: young and you're getting millions of dollars or even you know,
Speaker 3: a half a million dollars. That's like, you know, you
Speaker 3: want to just do every single thing that you ever
Speaker 3: dreamed of in life in one year. Yeah, and then
Speaker 3: it's like you know you're not there anymore, and now
Speaker 3: you gotta you know, you're screwed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And that really came from, uh, you know, just
Speaker 5: show influences. I listened to Nipsey a lot, I listened
Speaker 5: to jay Z a lot, and I just watch how
Speaker 5: they moved, especially Nipsey. Nipsey was never following the crowd.
Speaker 5: He always did his own thing. So that was the
Speaker 5: same thing I never try to. That's what's hard being
Speaker 5: an athlete. You come in and you see all the cars,
Speaker 5: and you go to somebody's house and you see how
Speaker 5: nice their house is, and you want that, so you
Speaker 5: go get that, even though, like you said, maybe that's
Speaker 5: not where you're at right now. Peer pressure, yeah, peer pressure.
Speaker 5: So it's like, okay, I'll go get a car. Maybe
Speaker 5: I can't afford, but I'm gonna do it so I
Speaker 5: can I can flex you know what I'm saying. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: but it's levels and it's all about patients and time.
Speaker 5: And I invested way before I bought a car, Like
Speaker 5: I was investing before I thought about a car.
Speaker 3: Would you would you invest in stocks?
Speaker 5: I told you it was offline. My first investment was,
Speaker 5: you know, with a guy that I met at this event,
Speaker 5: and you know, he told me, basically, the only way
Speaker 5: I was gonna learn is I put some get some
Speaker 5: skin in the game. And so he challenged me to
Speaker 5: get some skin in the game. Gave me kind of
Speaker 5: like an offer. I couldn't couldn't.
Speaker 3: Refuge in a company PC.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, we went to this like we went to
Speaker 5: a Seahawks had partnered with a VC firm out in Seattle,
Speaker 5: and they had like a panel and we was all,
Speaker 5: there's a bunch of players. But again even like that,
Speaker 5: like they invited the whole team, so ninety of us
Speaker 5: at the time, but only maybe fifteen guys came. So,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm sitting there and I just go to
Speaker 5: the back to get some food, and you know, I'm
Speaker 5: sitting in the back and I had this guy come
Speaker 5: up to me and he's like, yo, like what are
Speaker 5: you guys doing here. I'm like, well, were trying to
Speaker 5: learn like everybody else. You see the panel. It's a
Speaker 5: great panel. I feel like they got a lot to offer.
Speaker 5: Like I'm listening, I'm learning. What are you talking about?
Speaker 5: He's like yeah, but like, what are you actually going
Speaker 5: to learn from this? Yall? Y'all go to all these panels,
Speaker 5: y'all read all these books. Well what are you gonna
Speaker 5: do after you read the panels and read the books
Speaker 5: like you gotta do. You got to get your skin
Speaker 5: in the game. I was like, all right, well, that's
Speaker 5: why we're trying to learn. We here, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. I'm like, who is this guy? You know,
Speaker 5: we're trying to learn to get some skin in the game.
Speaker 5: I got to figure it out on the cover. CFO, yeah,
Speaker 5: you feel me. So I was like, all right, well,
Speaker 5: you know, tell me what you think we should do?
Speaker 5: Is that all right?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 5: I got you know, offer for you basically, offer us
Speaker 5: a deal where you know, we invest then X amount
Speaker 5: of dollars and if we if the company turned out well,
Speaker 5: we keep the money. If the company turned out bad,
Speaker 5: then he would give us the money back. But we
Speaker 5: had to give it a charity. We couldn't keep it.
Speaker 5: So he was like, that's why. That way you you
Speaker 5: kind of get your first exposure into into investing. And
Speaker 5: so we did it and the company ended up five
Speaker 5: accident really fifteen got showed up. How many investors, Well
Speaker 5: it was only us who was ever getting snacks that day.
Speaker 5: So I guess, you know, the opportunity, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. I got up at the right time, but
Speaker 5: it's really just three of us. So we all got
Speaker 5: the opportunity. We all invested and ended up turning well.
Speaker 5: And I think, you know, obviously when it started going well,
Speaker 5: I was like, dang, I want to take that again,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So I mean, this is what I think
Speaker 2: is amazing about you. Is a humility number one. But
Speaker 2: being in the right place number two. But the internships,
Speaker 2: because you didn't just stop at Microsoft, right you went
Speaker 2: to another VC firm. That's where you met John Cottins,
Speaker 2: John Commerson. You told about his role and how he
Speaker 2: helped you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was hugely influential. It's kind of funny. I was.
Speaker 5: I just remember again, like we were all different, and
Speaker 5: we was all came from a different you know, place
Speaker 5: in the league. But like we were all on the
Speaker 5: same mentality in the locker room. So I remember being
Speaker 5: in the locker room and I'm sitting and I'm listening
Speaker 5: to Sherman Doug talk and they talking about where they're
Speaker 5: going for the weekend because they both went to Stanford
Speaker 5: and they had this like Richard Sherman, that's my guy.
Speaker 5: He's trying to connect you guys. But I was listening
Speaker 5: to them talk. They was going to this event where
Speaker 5: it's like basically like everybody that went to Stanford come
Speaker 5: in and connect. And I'm just like, dang, I know,
Speaker 5: uta they gotta have something like that. Like I know
Speaker 5: it's not enough of us to go to an event,
Speaker 5: but like they got to have somebody. So I remember
Speaker 5: when I was there, we were I forgot who we
Speaker 5: were before, but we switched to Nike because the president
Speaker 5: of Nike came from Utah State. So I reached out
Speaker 5: to my coach. I got a contact and I just
Speaker 5: reached out to him. I just like, you know, just
Speaker 5: want to you know Picky Brain. I know he was
Speaker 5: working at Nike. I was like, you know, like you
Speaker 5: talk state of lum like he was a fan of myself.
Speaker 5: I was like, you know, I heard a lot about
Speaker 5: you as well. So we started just having conversations and
Speaker 5: he was actually lived in Portland. So I asked him, like,
Speaker 5: you know who in Seattle should I know? Or shot me?
Speaker 5: And he introduced me to John Connors. And then after
Speaker 5: I got introduced to John Connors, we were you know,
Speaker 5: he started taking me out, you know, to lunches every
Speaker 5: like every off day. But every off day he was
Speaker 5: asking me like, what do you want to do life
Speaker 5: after football? And I'm sitting here like twenty one, twenty two,
Speaker 5: and know what I'm saying, like I just got here,
Speaker 5: Like what do you mean? Like I'm not thinking about
Speaker 5: like after football, I want to be great, like I
Speaker 5: want to you know what I'm saying, I'm trying to
Speaker 5: get Super Bowls and all these other stuff. And he
Speaker 5: was like, man, you know I don't. I didn't play football,
Speaker 5: but life happens fast, so you know you got to
Speaker 5: think about it. I'm gonna challenge you on it. Every
Speaker 5: time we come here. I'm gonna challenge you. And I
Speaker 5: remember one conversation I told him about the investment that
Speaker 5: I did and I had and you know how well
Speaker 5: I was doing. He was like, man, you should come see,
Speaker 5: you know what we have going. And I had no
Speaker 5: idea what he what he was talking about. I didn't know.
Speaker 5: I thought he you know Microsoft days, they made a
Speaker 5: lot of money. I thought he was retired, just chilling.
Speaker 5: And you know, he brought me down to Ignition, and
Speaker 5: Ignition is a VC firm down in Seattle, and you know,
Speaker 5: he kind of opened up the portfolio. Let me see
Speaker 5: what they were doing, let me see the different type
Speaker 5: of companies they were doing. They were doing way different companies.
Speaker 5: I even saw, like I was looking at more consumer
Speaker 5: like things like that, they were doing more SaaS, like
Speaker 5: you know, software as a service companies. And so I'm like,
Speaker 5: I have no idea that I'm not even realizing, like
Speaker 5: you know, I'm using docu sign but I'm not realizing
Speaker 5: they invested in docusing. So from from that, we just
Speaker 5: started doing that. And then I think that kind of
Speaker 5: sparked me into like wanting to do my own deal.
Speaker 5: Then after I did my own dal I remember him
Speaker 5: reaching out to me like, yo, like, let's I didn't
Speaker 5: realize that's how much you was into this, Like let's
Speaker 5: take it to another level and how about you be
Speaker 5: a venture partner on this new fund that we're thinking
Speaker 5: about creating. And you know, I took it, took the opportunity,
Speaker 5: and here we are, all.
Speaker 2: Of this about playing being the best line back in
Speaker 2: the league.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you a question about negotiating contract.
Speaker 3: What are some things that you put in the contract
Speaker 3: or you took out of the contract that you know
Speaker 3: you when negotiating, like outside just the standard stuff like
Speaker 3: stuff that you actually put in or you saw something
Speaker 3: that was like naw, we're not doing that.
Speaker 5: It was the it was the forty six and fifty
Speaker 5: three game, you know, roster bonus or per games what
Speaker 5: they call them. You know, it was basically like I had,
Speaker 5: I had like a lot of money tied up in
Speaker 5: having to be on the field. So I remember during
Speaker 5: that during that contract, I was always stressing about missing games.
Speaker 5: Got new like that was money missing.
Speaker 3: And this is this is why guys play with broken her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because you know again like you said, like you
Speaker 5: got a guy saying I got to play ninety percent
Speaker 5: of my snaps to get X amount of dollars and
Speaker 5: you're like, all right, well, I know, my my my
Speaker 5: hip not feeling right on my shoulder, not feeling right,
Speaker 5: but I'm at eighty five percent. I need to get
Speaker 5: to ninety. And so they go out there and they
Speaker 5: play and it's you know, not they're not always thinking
Speaker 5: about the betterment of their life, and so I was
Speaker 5: thinking like that. I was thinking like, dang, I don't
Speaker 5: like why, I don't want to think like this and
Speaker 5: so and so during the negotiations, I brought that up.
Speaker 5: I was like, look, we're not doing this, Like I'm like,
Speaker 5: I don't want to think about this no more. We
Speaker 5: got to turn these to forty six and it was
Speaker 5: like yeah, and they was like, no, we you know,
Speaker 5: we can't do that, and yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, no,
Speaker 5: y'all can. I was like yeah. I was like, you
Speaker 5: said running back is probably the most dangerous position positions, right,
Speaker 5: It's like yeah. I was like, well, you gave a
Speaker 5: running back exactly what I'm asking and you're saying his
Speaker 5: position is more dangerous than mine. So why did he
Speaker 5: get it? And I did it when it's more of
Speaker 5: a risk with him than it is with me. And
Speaker 5: so what was the response? Did have a response? It
Speaker 5: was just you know, they understood, and again it is
Speaker 5: part of just you know, doing your homework and uh,
Speaker 5: you know again like that's all studying. Like I just
Speaker 5: I knew that. I knew that was the case, and
Speaker 5: so had I not known that, I wouldn't even been
Speaker 5: able to argue it. So I knew that was the case,
Speaker 5: and I knew what they had done years before, and
Speaker 5: it was just basically something for my mental I didn't
Speaker 5: want to have to worry about that.
Speaker 3: That's the best feel in the world. Even with us.
Speaker 3: We've done that before, Like we negotiate deals with corporations
Speaker 3: and you can tell like they're not they're not expecting
Speaker 3: us to know certain things. So then we bring up
Speaker 3: like you noticed, it's like there's no response because they
Speaker 3: want it's like, okay, you know, he got that, But
Speaker 3: it was the unfortunate part is, like you said, the
Speaker 3: vast majority of people just aren't aware of these certain Yeah,
Speaker 3: And it's like that's crazy for NFL because it's like NBA,
Speaker 3: you get a sprained ankle when gods is missing four weeks,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Cause they're getting paid. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's like they're not rushing back and it's
Speaker 3: like all right, but the NFL, it's only a couple.
Speaker 3: It's only sixteen weeks and they're like real serious injuries
Speaker 3: and they're playing. So how do you think do you
Speaker 3: think this will ever be solved? As far as like
Speaker 3: the NFL contract situation, I personally feel like the owners
Speaker 3: have too much power where the NBA is like more
Speaker 3: even you can actually even argue that the players have
Speaker 3: more power than the owners on a certain But what's
Speaker 3: the because anytime like a lockout happens, it's never really
Speaker 3: beneficial because a billionaire has always been have more power
Speaker 3: than a millionaire and they can just starve guys out.
Speaker 3: I want to get you your thoughts because you was
Speaker 3: the around for the last slockout, right, I was, yeah,
Speaker 3: so hey, well, my first question is how do we
Speaker 3: solve this problem and make these contracts better for NFL players.
Speaker 3: I'll let you ask, I'll let you answer that. Then
Speaker 3: I gotta have the follow up.
Speaker 5: I think we gotta as a group want to make
Speaker 5: them better. And I think we do want to make
Speaker 5: them better, but I think we got to like really
Speaker 5: figure out what that looks like. And then you know,
Speaker 5: the toughest part about it too, is the difference between
Speaker 5: the NBA and the NFL is the amount of people
Speaker 5: that we have on the team and the differences in
Speaker 5: pay and structures and everything. So you know, you might
Speaker 5: have your top twenty guys on the team that's making
Speaker 5: X amount of dollars or whatever and they're fighting for that,
Speaker 5: but the bottom half they're like, oh, we cool with that.
Speaker 5: So a lot it's a lot of this. It's like
Speaker 5: a lot of like you know, button heads within you know,
Speaker 5: within the players. So we would have to come together
Speaker 5: at first to get that done. I feel like it's
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's changing from a standpoint, But I
Speaker 5: think the biggest thing that that will help is education.
Speaker 5: Like you said, a lot of things. There's a lot
Speaker 5: of times I feel like in talking to players, talking
Speaker 5: to guys like they don't even know what's in their contract.
Speaker 5: But they don't know what the structure of their contract is.
Speaker 5: They just they like they like the consumer, they like
Speaker 5: the fan. They watch the contract get reported on the screen,
Speaker 5: and they believe with whatever that is. Like they don't
Speaker 5: take the time. And a lot of it too is
Speaker 5: on the agent. You know, the agent has to you know,
Speaker 5: take that time to explain. But if the agent tries
Speaker 5: to explain to you and you don't care about it,
Speaker 5: then there's really no point in doing that. I'm pretty
Speaker 5: sure there's a bunch of players it's just like, man,
Speaker 5: I just want to go out and play ball, and
Speaker 5: we got to change that. We got to change the
Speaker 5: whole I just want to play ball and do my
Speaker 5: job and do whatever. Because at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: this is a business, and everybody treats it like a business.
Speaker 5: But majority of the players, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: So we got to treat this like a big business.
Speaker 5: Treat yourself like a business. Understand you are an enterprise
Speaker 5: and entity like so you need to understand the ins
Speaker 5: and outs of everything that's going on. So I think
Speaker 5: it starts with that. It starts with guys treating themselves
Speaker 5: as a business and kating themselves and putting the energy
Speaker 5: into wanting to learn the ins and outs of their business.
Speaker 5: Because we can change the contracts and we can change
Speaker 5: the way they structure the contracts. But if guys don't
Speaker 5: care about what's in them, and people can hide things
Speaker 5: in the contract, then it really doesn't matter. Because there
Speaker 5: are certain things like when we talk about you know,
Speaker 5: when we talk about guys, you know, wanting guaranteed contracts
Speaker 5: or wanting to have guaranteed contracts. It's nothing that says
Speaker 5: we can't. It's just were not doing it. So there's
Speaker 5: you know, it's not like a thing that you have
Speaker 5: to you know, exciteful. Yeah, you don't have to accept it.
Speaker 5: Because Kirk Cousins was a guy who had all his
Speaker 5: whole contract guarantee. Granted, he had tons of leverage. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: tons of leverage. So they team I told you I
Speaker 5: was Washington, so we let them go to Minnesota. Okay.
Speaker 3: But that's a good point though, because it's like, after
Speaker 3: a while, something just becomes normal and it's just lives
Speaker 3: that NFL contracts aren't guaranteed. But I remember when he
Speaker 3: got that, it was like he was guaranteed. That was
Speaker 3: weird to me. But it's like, it's not to say
Speaker 3: that you can't have a guaranteed contract. It's just most
Speaker 3: people just don't have guarantee contract.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it don't. It don't end up working out that way.
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Speaker 6: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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Speaker 5: Protected sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 2: Leverage. Because he already had I think they franchise tag
Speaker 2: him twice, so they couldn't do it again.
Speaker 5: So yeah, anything, yeah, one hundred. I had a lot
Speaker 5: to do with it. They franchised them twice. So that's the
Speaker 5: reason why the Washington Football team let him go, because
Speaker 5: his next franchise number or whatever was gonna be crazy
Speaker 5: or they couldn't do it again.
Speaker 2: It's the average of the top five.
Speaker 3: So what's what's the franchise tag? What is that all about?
Speaker 5: Franchise tag is something that no player really wants, you know,
Speaker 5: every player hates, but it's a way to kind of
Speaker 5: keep any player that they want there. So if they
Speaker 5: franchise you, basically for that year, your contract is guaranteed,
Speaker 5: and for that year, you make the average of the
Speaker 5: top five guys in the league. So I think for
Speaker 5: myself it was like like sixteen million. I think when
Speaker 5: I was up last time I was up. So it's
Speaker 5: basically like a you know, like a strategic wed that
Speaker 5: a team can can use if you can't if you
Speaker 5: can't get a deal done, you can't get extension done,
Speaker 5: and you don't want that player to leave, it's just
Speaker 5: franchise tag them. So now you have them for a
Speaker 5: year and then they have a period and where like
Speaker 5: you can still negotiate and you know, work on a
Speaker 5: deal or whatever. But if you don't get a deal,
Speaker 5: then you have to you basically you tied to that team.
Speaker 5: You can't go nowhere for that year. You have to play.
Speaker 5: We don't necessarily have to play those guys that didn't
Speaker 5: want to play on franchise tag, but you know, you
Speaker 5: you're basically tied to that team for that year.
Speaker 2: Each team gets one yeah that year, and so they
Speaker 2: did him twice and so now the third year he
Speaker 2: can't be franchise tacks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think you can be franchised, which is
Speaker 5: why they let him go. And then like thirty six
Speaker 5: months he's gonna be crazy. And then that's what he
Speaker 5: used to negotiate the numbers. You know, you use that.
Speaker 5: So now it's like, you know, if you a quarterback
Speaker 5: and your your final year or whatever, you thirty six million,
Speaker 5: All right, well I want more than what I was
Speaker 5: going to make, and you just kind of go from there.
Speaker 3: So this last lockout that we had, it was an
Speaker 3: unfortunate situation and a lot of stuff started to come out.
Speaker 3: Vince Young, this is documented, So he had some financial
Speaker 3: issues at the time, and they were saying that he
Speaker 3: went to his financial guy. One of these financial guys,
Speaker 3: they was giving out loans to players, but it was
Speaker 3: like twenty thirty percent interest. Story short, like the guys
Speaker 3: didn't have enough money to actually pay their bills, so
Speaker 3: they was getting loans from like pretty much like loan
Speaker 3: shark loans. Like this whole thing came out. It was
Speaker 3: like a whole big thing, and it was crazy to
Speaker 3: me because I'm like, it's you know, it's interesting that
Speaker 3: guys have, you know, ten million dollars twenty million dollar
Speaker 3: contracts and they have to pretty much get paid ay loans.
Speaker 3: It's really what it is like, pay they loan to
Speaker 3: cover you over. So did you see that? Did you
Speaker 3: did anybody? Did you know anybody that had to go
Speaker 3: through that? And how did you like, how was that
Speaker 3: time for you? And the other guys in the league
Speaker 3: when the lockout happened.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean that's like a deeper question, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean, Like, as men, you know, it's very
Speaker 5: rare that you're gonna tell another person that you're struggling
Speaker 5: financially for sure. So were there guys that was probably struggling, maybe,
Speaker 5: but did they cover it up really well? Probably? So
Speaker 5: I don't know anybody nobody came and openly talked about struggling,
Speaker 5: but you know, you had an idea of you know,
Speaker 5: some guys that was you know. But as far as
Speaker 5: that time with me, like I was, like I said,
Speaker 5: I was good because you know, I I had been saving,
Speaker 5: you know, for for a very long time. I've been
Speaker 5: you know, saving and investing and things of that nature, and
Speaker 5: just so happened around the time in the lockout. Some
Speaker 5: of my investments was coming back, so I was actually
Speaker 5: getting paid for some of my investments, and I really
Speaker 5: just focused on using that time of what life would
Speaker 5: look like if I retired. So I was like constantly
Speaker 5: on zoom calls, meetings, investment meetings, things of that nature.
Speaker 5: So you know, I feel like I had a different
Speaker 5: experience just because of the way I positioned myself. But
Speaker 5: you know, I know a lot of guys were worried,
Speaker 5: you know, about the state of the league and what
Speaker 5: was going to do. And I think that's what played
Speaker 5: into the deal that we ultimate end up getting. You
Speaker 5: think it was a good deal. I wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 5: I would have done it. I think we had a
Speaker 5: lot of power. I think we had a lot of leverage.
Speaker 2: Has to be approved.
Speaker 5: I think we have two thirds or something like that,
Speaker 5: so everybody in the league votes. Yeah, And even a
Speaker 5: voting situation like the way that they the way that
Speaker 5: they pushed the voting out, it was like, you know,
Speaker 5: you get this email or send this text message or whatever,
Speaker 5: and you basically got it in your email and said vote.
Speaker 5: And I know there was a lot of guys that
Speaker 5: voted that hadn't even looked at the terms of what
Speaker 5: the CBA was, And so, you know, I think that's
Speaker 5: you know, not only an NFL thing, it's an NFL
Speaker 5: PA thing, Like we got to do better. You know,
Speaker 5: a lot of guys were just seeing whatever they saw
Speaker 5: in the media and voting off of that. Like so
Speaker 5: I don't know if I would have I would have
Speaker 5: done a deal but again, it's it's a hard thing
Speaker 5: that when you have so many guys to try to
Speaker 5: get them on the same page, you know, because you
Speaker 5: have the middle class, the upper class, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying, and everybody. But yeah, and you got a
Speaker 5: lot of who didn't vote, which could have changed what
Speaker 5: could have changed, you know? So how did that? How
Speaker 5: did that work?
Speaker 3: They tally up every single person's vote and majority route wins.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think they needed like either like sixty six
Speaker 5: percent or whatever two thirds and they needed you know,
Speaker 5: so they just sent out either email or the text
Speaker 5: or whatever, and you voted from your email and they
Speaker 5: just counted it up and if it was sixty six
Speaker 5: percent of the league or whatever it was, it got approved.
Speaker 5: Who's the president of the of the associations? The Morris Smith? Yeah,
Speaker 5: the Morris Smith. Yeah, he's still still Smith still is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're the captain of the team.
Speaker 5: I'm captain the captain for a while.
Speaker 2: So is that something that you can organize and say, guys,
Speaker 2: we're going to have this meeting his what's happening or
Speaker 2: is that like is that what you did? Is that
Speaker 2: happening in the league.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it happens all across the league. I think everybody
Speaker 5: was doing it, but I think the thing was it was, again,
Speaker 5: we had sixty seventy you know whatever, players, and you
Speaker 5: had maybe twenty that fell one way, twenty that felt
Speaker 5: another way, and twenty that felt another way. And we
Speaker 5: had one vote, so we had to get all of
Speaker 5: us on the same page to put in our one vote.
Speaker 5: Seattle had one vote. Seattle had to vote, so every
Speaker 5: team had a vote.
Speaker 3: So it's like it's like the presidential election, like the
Speaker 3: state represents, like everybody votes, and then the majority of
Speaker 3: the team whatever. Now Seattle castes his vote yesterday. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not like every single vote count.
Speaker 5: Well yeah, it wasn't. You know, I don't believe it
Speaker 5: was every player, but like you know, as far as
Speaker 5: like Seattle or whatever, it was, you know kind of
Speaker 5: how we were doing it because we had reps. You know,
Speaker 5: you had your rep. So I was a player rep.
Speaker 5: And so we was meeting in Miami and we was
Speaker 5: going over it, and then we was like voting upon
Speaker 5: our We was voting on the teams whether or not
Speaker 5: who would like would we send this to the rest
Speaker 5: of the players, And once that passed, then it got
Speaker 5: sent to the rest of the players. When it got
Speaker 5: sent to the rest of the players, then everybody has
Speaker 5: a vote and you vote and then it was over.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that's how it worked. That's interesting. Like
Speaker 3: I said, it's like the presidential election where they just
Speaker 3: picked it. Like New York voted Democrats, Arizona College is voted. Yeah,
Speaker 3: let me ask you this as far as on the
Speaker 3: financial side for building your financial team, we have about
Speaker 3: agents a lot, but we don't hear about players when
Speaker 3: their financial management financial planners counting.
Speaker 5: I believe you have a pretty a pretty.
Speaker 3: Good talk about that. How does that work out for
Speaker 3: players or for you specifically? What does your financial management
Speaker 3: team do? And how do you choose a good financial manager?
Speaker 3: Wish some tips and advice for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, my team is amazing. Shout out to humble. Uh.
Speaker 5: We kind of do everything in house, so they take
Speaker 5: care a lot of a lot of the stuff. And
Speaker 5: it took it was a progress, a process to get
Speaker 5: to that. You know, I had a couple, I had
Speaker 5: a couple of financial advisors before I had him, and
Speaker 5: you know, when I first got out, you know, from
Speaker 5: a rookie, my thought processes was I went with a
Speaker 5: financial advisor who I knew had other guys that I knew,
Speaker 5: so I knew if he did me dirty, it was
Speaker 5: other people that everybody going, yeah, I'm all right, did
Speaker 5: you see that? Like you know what I mean? So,
Speaker 5: you know, so I feel like that's kind of how
Speaker 5: my my two first financial guys was. And then I
Speaker 5: went to another one who had like a star studied
Speaker 5: you know, clientele and things of that nature, and I
Speaker 5: just realized that wasn't where I wanted to be either.
Speaker 5: And I think the thing that I was looking for
Speaker 5: was I was looking for someone who was willing to
Speaker 5: teach me, and that's what I was missing. And all
Speaker 5: of them, everybody wanted to tell you, to tell me
Speaker 5: what to do and tell me what I need to
Speaker 5: put my stuff in, but nobody wanted to teach me.
Speaker 5: And you know, you know, the guy I have humble,
Speaker 5: He sat down you know, I remember I remember like
Speaker 5: sitting down him like you know, all right, like let's
Speaker 5: let's invest, let's let's do this, let's do that. It's
Speaker 5: like all right, well, what's a stock? And I was like,
Speaker 5: he's like, what's the bond? I was like, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean, I'm like you know, what do you mean?
Speaker 5: I don't know. I was like, come on, we could
Speaker 5: just invest. He's like, nah, like I'm not You're not
Speaker 5: investing one dollar with me until you know the basics.
Speaker 5: And when he said that to me at the time,
Speaker 5: I was like, dang, like I gotta wait to invest.
Speaker 5: But then two hindsight, I'm like, like, end up being
Speaker 5: one of the best things for me. And I respect
Speaker 5: him for that because, you know, I remember sitting in
Speaker 5: my living room and it was like class and I
Speaker 5: had a notebook and he sat down and he just
Speaker 5: start throwing out terms at me and just constantly quizzing
Speaker 5: me and put me in a different different things. And
Speaker 5: so my advice is to find somebody a you trust
Speaker 5: and someone that you can that that teaches you, you know,
Speaker 5: because at the end of the day, you want to
Speaker 5: be taught, not told. And so that's that was my
Speaker 5: biggest thing, is like, if the person's willing to teach you,
Speaker 5: that means he's not afraid of you figuring out everything
Speaker 5: that he's doing. If the person not fraid of you
Speaker 5: figuring out everything he's doing, that means you don't got
Speaker 5: nothing to high. If he don't want to teach you.
Speaker 5: Then I feel like he got something high. And if
Speaker 5: he got something high, you can't have my money. Yeah
Speaker 5: you can't. You can't do that. And now it's his thing.
Speaker 5: He was like, man, I want to teach you to
Speaker 5: the point where you don't need me. You still have me,
Speaker 5: but you won't need me, and then we can actually
Speaker 5: have conversations. So when I bring a deal to you
Speaker 5: and I'm saying, this is what's in it, this is
Speaker 5: what not in it, this is what we can make
Speaker 5: on it, I want to be able to have like
Speaker 5: you give me your opinion back versus just me tell
Speaker 5: you what to do. And so that was the biggest
Speaker 5: thing for me, just just you know, positioning it myself
Speaker 5: with somebody who was willing to teach me, take the
Speaker 5: time to you know, because I think the NFL is
Speaker 5: cool from the standpoint of we play from August to
Speaker 5: February if you lucky, and from like February, mid February
Speaker 5: to July, you just work out. Now, you know, I
Speaker 5: don't think any of us is the hope. Maybe maybe
Speaker 5: Aaron Donald, but you know, so, uh, you work out
Speaker 5: maybe four hours, that's still twenty more hours to do
Speaker 5: something else. And so you know, I use that time
Speaker 5: to learn something else and get understanding in a different field.
Speaker 2: So no one the knowledge that you know. Now, if
Speaker 2: you could go back this two part question, you can
Speaker 2: go back, would you represent yourself?
Speaker 5: No one?
Speaker 2: The knowledge that you know? And do you see a
Speaker 2: change or maybe a revolution with more players or wanted
Speaker 2: to come into the draft and side you know what,
Speaker 2: I don't need an agent. I'm gonna represent myself. What
Speaker 2: would your advice be? Because I believe there's a defensive
Speaker 2: end from Michigan. There's a Gary might have been Gary.
Speaker 5: I think so any Amazone agency.
Speaker 2: Became yeah agency fresh fresh out of college. Oh that
Speaker 2: might spark some change. What are your things?
Speaker 5: What I do it all over again? I probably would
Speaker 5: still have an agent the first the first time, but
Speaker 5: that fee would be close to nothing because they not
Speaker 5: negotiating anything. So you know, are the rookie contrast is slotted,
Speaker 5: so you know, you know, wherever you go, first round,
Speaker 5: second round, third round, whatever, you don't get a percentage
Speaker 5: more than what that guy got last year.
Speaker 2: You know, even matter the position. So if a quarterback
Speaker 2: got took in forty second.
Speaker 5: Don't matter. If you still get what don't matter? If
Speaker 5: you the second round pick, and if you know forty
Speaker 5: seven pick, overall, you're gonna make a certain amount more
Speaker 5: than what the last year got made, regardless of your position.
Speaker 5: And so knowing that you know they're not really negotiating
Speaker 5: too much, the numbers are already preset, so you know,
Speaker 5: I would definitely negotiate that percentage down. And you know,
Speaker 5: I would see what they what they offer to me
Speaker 5: outside of the field, and really just see, you know,
Speaker 5: how much they are a man, they work and do
Speaker 5: I see like there's a shift. I don't know if
Speaker 5: there's a shift, because I don't think that you gotta
Speaker 5: want to do business. I don't think everybody's into business.
Speaker 5: So you know, I think more guys will do it.
Speaker 5: I think it'll be more of a thing. It will,
Speaker 5: it'll become common, But I don't think it'll be like
Speaker 5: a point where the whole league will do it, because
Speaker 5: there's certain people who just don't do business and they
Speaker 5: don't you know, they're not good, they're not interested in
Speaker 5: they like maybe you like art, maybe like something else
Speaker 5: like this. And I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's any wrong, anything wrong with having
Speaker 3: an agent, because like you said, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's representation and somebody's doing a good job for you,
Speaker 3: but you have an option not to if you want to.
Speaker 3: There's a lot more work and everybody's not going to
Speaker 3: read the CBA. Everybody's not going to go through all
Speaker 3: of that. So I personally feel like agents, representations, financial plans,
Speaker 3: all of that is good, but you should always be
Speaker 3: educated as well, just in case you never know, and
Speaker 3: you know, it's just good to just be able to
Speaker 3: ask questions and not to just you shouldn't trust anybody blindly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think the same thing. Like
Speaker 5: everybody kind of felt like myself, Sharon, and I can't
Speaker 5: speak for sharm, but you know, they thought that we
Speaker 5: was like against agents. I'm not against agents. I just
Speaker 5: you know, felt like I wanted to be at the
Speaker 5: table and I feel like that was the only way
Speaker 5: that I could truly be at the table. And like
Speaker 5: you said, like there's guys that you know, they probably
Speaker 5: do need some representations to help them out. But I
Speaker 5: think the biggest thing, the biggest shift that need to
Speaker 5: have to happen is like players not trust in buying,
Speaker 5: like players knowing what's in their contract and knowing what
Speaker 5: the negotiation process was and knowing, you know, what they
Speaker 5: got in they contract. Can they get that out? Like
Speaker 5: it should be a conversation with the player Like I
Speaker 5: always thought in my mind, I always thought like there
Speaker 5: was like two processes when it came to negotiation. It
Speaker 5: was the negotiation between the agent and the team and
Speaker 5: the negotiation between the team and the player. Like basically
Speaker 5: the agent and the team would negotiate the deal. Then
Speaker 5: the agent would come back to the player and basically
Speaker 5: tell him why this is a good deal and to
Speaker 5: take it versus you know, hey, like this is what
Speaker 5: they said today, Like you know, we're gonna counter with this?
Speaker 5: What do you think?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: No, no, no, counter with this? Like this is what
Speaker 5: I really want, Like I need this in my contract.
Speaker 5: If we have more of that dialogue, then that's that's
Speaker 5: a bigger shift to me. Then then everybody want to
Speaker 5: represent themselves.
Speaker 3: How much was your first contract?
Speaker 5: For my first ever contract? Yeah, thing it was four million?
Speaker 5: So how how how did life hit you?
Speaker 3: And how is it just coming out of you know,
Speaker 3: college and becoming a millionaire and you know, twenty one
Speaker 3: years old, twenty three years old, stuff like that, Like
Speaker 3: we always hear the stories of like most people, like
Speaker 3: even in our our world, like in business, it takes
Speaker 3: years to become a millionaire, you know, mid thirties, forties,
Speaker 3: thirty years old, where you already worked for ten years. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the athletes and entertainers is a little different because you
Speaker 3: become a millionaire like instantly as soon as you become
Speaker 3: a professional where all the professions you have to work
Speaker 3: at that profession. So how is it, you know, as
Speaker 3: far as the temptations, the splurge, the lifestyle. I know,
Speaker 3: obviously you kept the level head, but how is that
Speaker 3: to become a millionaire that young?
Speaker 5: It was? It was, It was definitely an experience for sure.
Speaker 5: It was different because you know when I got drafted,
Speaker 5: you know, like people were calling me a millionaire like
Speaker 5: the next day, and I was like, yo, I ain't
Speaker 5: got nothing in my account, so I'm not a millionaire yet.
Speaker 5: And so that was that was the thing. Then, Uh,
Speaker 5: I got my signing bonus and I saw the amount
Speaker 5: of taxes that was taken out of my signing bonus,
Speaker 5: and I immediately called the Seahawks and I was like, man,
Speaker 5: I know, y' y'all stealing from me.
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 5: I mean, like, I know, I know what y'all love to.
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna be the eighty percent. You guys are
Speaker 5: not stealing from me. Like where is the other half?
Speaker 2: Get mister Allen?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm like, where's the other half? They're like, nah, bro,
Speaker 5: this is taxes? Like you never played tax before? Like no,
Speaker 5: I'm not paid tax before, Like and what like isn't
Speaker 5: there a level? I'm like, I go from from zero
Speaker 5: to the top. I can't like get I can't gradually
Speaker 5: go up like y'all gonna take all my money. I'm
Speaker 5: like so, But as far as like the temptations that
Speaker 5: I never really was a person that was into like
Speaker 5: material things like you know my uh, I had a
Speaker 5: car that I was driving, you know, my in college
Speaker 5: and I was gonna use that car for the league.
Speaker 5: But the only reason why I got another car was
Speaker 5: because my dad had got this Audi and it was
Speaker 5: like a coop and it was like low to the
Speaker 5: ground and it was hurting his back every single day
Speaker 5: he was getting in and out of it, and so
Speaker 5: he wanted another car. And I was like, all right, well,
Speaker 5: I'll just take over your I'll just take over your
Speaker 5: your payments and we'll get you a car. So that's
Speaker 5: how we worked that out, and that's how I got
Speaker 5: another car, just because he was I didn't want to
Speaker 5: see him, you know, hurting his back every day he
Speaker 5: was getting out of his car, and I was like,
Speaker 5: you know, so that was that was my purchase. I
Speaker 5: don't even remember having a big purchase like that. I
Speaker 5: didn't run and go buy stuff or whatever. Like I
Speaker 5: was just like, man, you know what, I just want
Speaker 5: to play. I want to Like we had went through
Speaker 5: so much. I had went through so much at that point,
Speaker 5: like I you know, I was I got sick before
Speaker 5: the combine, you know, I got the draft day experience
Speaker 5: was was this old another thing, and so I was
Speaker 5: just like, man, like, now that all this is behind me,
Speaker 5: I just want to play. So like my first year,
Speaker 5: I just wanted to to play. So I wasn't really
Speaker 5: worried about everything. And then too, like the majority of
Speaker 5: the defensive majority of the team was my age, so
Speaker 5: we didn't have like older guys that had all these
Speaker 5: cars and stuff like that. We was all just coming
Speaker 5: from you know, college really, so everybody was wasn't driving
Speaker 5: them crazy, So like it was easy to be humble
Speaker 5: in that situation because you know, you had a couple
Speaker 5: of older guys that had crazy cars. But we all
Speaker 5: was like, all right, we'll get there. You know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. Everybody was. Our whole team was pretty levelheaded
Speaker 5: from that standpoint. It was like, look like, we don't
Speaker 5: got to do that right now. Let's wait and then
Speaker 5: we'll get it when we when we when were good.
Speaker 2: Twenty twelve Man.
Speaker 5: Tras the franchise. I think that's probably the best draft
Speaker 5: class that they had, maybe in history. Who knows, easily. Yeah,
Speaker 5: twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: Twenty twelve, Yeah, round you drafted in second, and Russell's
Speaker 3: first round for US was third.
Speaker 5: Russe who was the first round draft? Bruce Serving.
Speaker 2: Too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was fast. Yeah, he's on Oakland. Well, no,
Speaker 5: he was with us last year. He came back to
Speaker 5: us last year and then he got hurt. Yeah, it
Speaker 5: was a good draft that we were solid.
Speaker 2: That was Andrew.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you this. You talked about taxes. We
Speaker 3: talked about this also with Brandon Copeland, but I was
Speaker 3: going to go there. Oh yeah, the taxes. There's a
Speaker 3: thing called the jock tax and people aren't familiar with,
Speaker 3: but like you get taxed in each state that you're playing,
Speaker 3: and I remember that's my man's name that played for
Speaker 3: the Broncos, Shannon Sharps. He was always a big support
Speaker 3: of us, Remember thinking, oh rod Smith, Rosmith shot to
Speaker 3: Rod Smith. So this was early on on Instagram. He
Speaker 3: became a big supporter. And he was telling me how
Speaker 3: I spoke to him.
Speaker 5: He was telling me.
Speaker 3: How he played for the Broncos. But he was like,
Speaker 3: guys used to hate playing in California because whenever they
Speaker 3: played in California, then they paid California state tax that
Speaker 3: for that game. And he was like, you know, you
Speaker 3: train in Denver, so like like let's say it's a
Speaker 3: Sunday game, right, You're training Denver until like Thursday night.
Speaker 3: Go you might go to San Francisco Friday or sometimes
Speaker 3: even Saturday r so, and then you leave right after
Speaker 3: the game. So you only spend in like forty eight hours,
Speaker 3: sometimes even less, but you get but that whole week's
Speaker 3: paycheck is in California, who has the highest state tax.
Speaker 3: And it's like for every state that you go to
Speaker 3: you're playing, you're paying different state tax. And it's like
Speaker 3: a lot of times this is why you know Florida
Speaker 3: and Texas has an advantage because even though you're not
Speaker 3: playing all of your games there, at least playing half
Speaker 3: the games there makes a big difference.
Speaker 2: And don't forget the city tax.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, Brandon Copman told us about that cities like Detroit.
Speaker 3: But then he was saying, like one of his guys
Speaker 3: argued that he's not paying Detroit tax because the training
Speaker 3: facility is in the sub burds. Yeah, so it's very
Speaker 3: complicated situation. But can you talk about that as far
Speaker 3: as the taxes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was the same thing man when I uh, yeah, surprised,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying, Like the first two games,
Speaker 5: first three games or whatever the season was in uh
Speaker 5: in Seattle. So I'm looking at my check and I'm
Speaker 5: all right cool, and I played in California and I
Speaker 5: was like again, walking up, they probably hate me at
Speaker 5: this point, Yo, Seahawks, y'all had it again. Y'all trying
Speaker 5: to steal from here. Y'all not doing that, Like where's
Speaker 5: my money? Like it's like, nah, that's California taxa. It's like, okay,
Speaker 5: that's cool. I don't play at California. Y'all noticed the
Speaker 5: Washington team, Like what's up? So It was one of
Speaker 5: those situations where you just had to you know, you
Speaker 5: had to be mindful of it, and you had to
Speaker 5: you had to figure out a way strategically to kind
Speaker 5: of combat that. So kind of what I did was
Speaker 5: I found out with the Seahawks, you know, we have
Speaker 5: our we pay our taxes, whatever the thirty three or
Speaker 5: whatever thirty whatever percentage is. I found out the Seahawks
Speaker 5: were always under withholding on our on our checks, and
Speaker 5: so it was it was always being under with hell.
Speaker 5: So the money that we were having one we thought
Speaker 5: we were made weren't. It wasn't being taxed all the way. So,
Speaker 5: you know, I went up to our test guy and
Speaker 5: I said, Yo, like, can we over with hell? Like
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. She just kind of come
Speaker 5: back like either the money I made off the field
Speaker 5: or some of the taxes or whatever. I just try
Speaker 5: to figure out a way to you know, the under
Speaker 5: withholding was just not going to cut through it because
Speaker 5: I was money. Yeah, I was owing money at the end.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to owe money after I was done
Speaker 5: or whenever. I you know, at the end of the thing,
Speaker 5: I either wanted to be flat or get money back.
Speaker 5: So instead of that was one way I thought about
Speaker 5: doing was I went to the the tax guy for
Speaker 5: the Seahawks and I told him to you know, up
Speaker 5: the percentage. And that's not something that everybody knew about,
Speaker 5: you know everybody, and think, how did you realize that? Humble?
Speaker 5: I mean yeah, he was. He was saying like, yeah,
Speaker 5: they're not they're not withholding enough. What do you mean
Speaker 5: not worthholding enough? It's like, okay, bro, like you said
Speaker 5: it twice, like I don't, I don't know. And he
Speaker 5: was like, well, you know, he started breaking to me
Speaker 5: the tax and he's like, they're they're not withholding enough.
Speaker 5: And so we kind of found that that's kind of
Speaker 5: how they did the you know, the taxes, and so
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, well I went to my guy
Speaker 5: and I told him like, yo, like can you over
Speaker 5: with hell? And you know, that was their thing. And
Speaker 5: so probably everybody on the team is under with healing
Speaker 5: unless you go up. You got to go up and
Speaker 5: tell them.
Speaker 2: So they just did an individually for yours. It became
Speaker 2: a team right then.
Speaker 5: It wasn't a team white thing. But I you know,
Speaker 5: as soon as I found out, I started telling guys
Speaker 5: like yo, like just let you know, like if you're
Speaker 5: trying to they under withhold us. So if you want
Speaker 5: to adjust that, you got to go and tell them.
Speaker 5: You got to go up like physically walk up there
Speaker 5: and tell them or send them an email saying like
Speaker 5: can you change this? But again, it's one of the
Speaker 5: things that you know, you don't think to know about it.
Speaker 5: You don't think to know that how much is the
Speaker 5: team withholding in the check and is it the mouth
Speaker 5: that it needs to be.
Speaker 2: And you got no choice. You got to You gotta
Speaker 2: play twice in California every year.
Speaker 5: Every year twice. But there was a there was a
Speaker 5: stretch where there was a stretch. It was a very
Speaker 5: good stretch. It was around Christmas too. We played in Washington,
Speaker 5: Florida that I think Texas, and then we played in
Speaker 5: Washington and then we played one more state that didn't
Speaker 5: have any taxes. But it was like five states in
Speaker 5: a row with no taxes. Now they got now they
Speaker 5: got Nevada with the Vegas Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but that's like once every four years, y'all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean just in general, Yeah, but that that
Speaker 5: really plays a role. Like you know what I'm saying
Speaker 5: when I think about when I think about teams that
Speaker 5: I would play for, like knowing what I know now,
Speaker 5: like that comes into a fact like which division do
Speaker 5: I want to do? I want to play for a
Speaker 5: team that gets taxed now because like I've been my
Speaker 5: whole career has been no income tax something like do
Speaker 5: I want to do that? Californians? California's crazy.
Speaker 3: And that's why I'm assuming a lot of NFL players
Speaker 3: living in Miami. Obviously, Miami has a lot of great
Speaker 3: advantages outside having those state tax helps too though, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: So like I'm assuming, like most guys have two homes,
Speaker 3: usually like with a home that they play in and
Speaker 3: then like the Miami when the off season they going to.
Speaker 5: Yeah, a lot of guys have a lot of guys
Speaker 5: have I think they have homes where they grew up
Speaker 5: at and some guys, like you said, go with Miami
Speaker 5: and things that nature. But I think from a task perspective,
Speaker 5: like you know, it's whatever you spend majority of time
Speaker 5: and so you know, have you got to do that
Speaker 5: to earth finesse that work? Do your think?
Speaker 3: So what's the what's the future for you as far
Speaker 3: as envision? Obviously you're a very bright guy. Do you
Speaker 3: want to spread the financial literacy, Are you playing on
Speaker 3: teaching people? Yeah, agency and things of that nation.
Speaker 5: No, agency, I'm good, I'm good. I'm good. But teaching,
Speaker 5: I definitely teach. I give knowledge for sure or even
Speaker 5: like whether it's from the game or what I know financially,
Speaker 5: because I think at the end of the day, like
Speaker 5: I want to help like NFL guys, especially see the money,
Speaker 5: see the future of that labor, especially because our sports
Speaker 5: so dangerous. So it's it's it's unfortunate you got guys
Speaker 5: walking away from a game that's so violent with with
Speaker 5: nothing to show for it. So you know, I always
Speaker 5: feel like anybody that wants to come and ask me
Speaker 5: questions or tell me how I do it, I'm like,
Speaker 5: I'm an open but from that standpoint, so you know,
Speaker 5: if there's an option, you know, opportunity for me to
Speaker 5: teach or to me to give the dollars away, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm always open for it. There's nothing that I'm really
Speaker 5: like withholding information. I'm you know, if you want to know,
Speaker 5: I'll tell you. And that's coming from football too. It's like,
Speaker 5: you know, I always feel like whatever you give you
Speaker 5: wanna get back, So you know, I wanted to give
Speaker 5: whatever I know. I think it's important information for guys
Speaker 5: to have. I want that number to change. I don't
Speaker 5: want to look and see, you know, I want to
Speaker 5: look and see guys walk away from the game a
Speaker 5: healthy and be with with the money. So, you know,
Speaker 5: if there's an opportunity for me to to to teach,
Speaker 5: then I definitely will. But one goal of mine is
Speaker 5: always been, uh when I came to the league was
Speaker 5: I thought I made a pretty good transition from college
Speaker 5: to to the NFL, and I wanted my transition from
Speaker 5: the NFL to life after football to be better than that.
Speaker 5: And so that's what sparked me to start doing internships
Speaker 5: and doing different things because I wanted to know what
Speaker 5: I was doing when I was done. So back you know,
Speaker 5: by the end of my career, I was playing because
Speaker 5: I loved the game versus because I needed the money.
Speaker 5: And so that that was my mindset, and that's that's
Speaker 5: my main goal outside of the Pro Bowls, all Pros
Speaker 5: and all that stuff, was to to be on that
Speaker 5: that twenty percent side of guys walking away with with
Speaker 5: good health, walking away with you know, all their money
Speaker 5: and you know, being able to live the lifestyle that
Speaker 5: you know, that I created with playing for the rest
Speaker 5: of my life.
Speaker 2: We spoke to Steve Stelee and uh, he spoke broke
Speaker 2: up the name of Adresan Horowitz and he was talking
Speaker 2: about how you know, he had sat down and brought
Speaker 2: knives and showed him some some deals and some investments,
Speaker 2: and that name came up when I was doing the
Speaker 2: research on you. Yeah, well, how how did you get introduced?
Speaker 2: What was the road then from mister.
Speaker 5: Man? The connection was was Chris Lines. I met Chris
Speaker 5: Lines actually with my my business manager, my boy and
Speaker 5: my brother house right. Yeah. I met Chris Lines in
Speaker 5: San Francisco probably in twenty thirteen, and so you know,
Speaker 5: we were just, uh, you know, I thought it was
Speaker 5: crazy because he was in you know, the financial world
Speaker 5: and I hadn't seen that at the time outside of Humble,
Speaker 5: and so I'm like, man, like, we need to stay connected.
Speaker 5: And throughout this time, he just was always sending me
Speaker 5: deals or sending me certain things, you know, invested in
Speaker 5: a couple of funds, and we just always had that
Speaker 5: that line of communication and been great with just sharing knowledge,
Speaker 5: helping me get a part of certain things down there
Speaker 5: and introduce me to those guys, and that's kind of
Speaker 5: been my connection with them.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you this before we wrap CTE. How
Speaker 3: do you feel about that? Are you concerned?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Do you ever think about that? Like as far as
Speaker 3: your own personal career and your colleagues.
Speaker 5: Obviously it's a thing. It's a thing you can ignore. Uh.
Speaker 5: For me, I'm a you know, I'm a big love
Speaker 5: attraction guy, and so I don't necessarily speak on it
Speaker 5: like that because I don't want to attract it. With
Speaker 5: that being said, you try to be mindful of it.
Speaker 5: But you know, I think there is something there. Obviously
Speaker 5: is something to it. We got to figure out what
Speaker 5: it is that causes that. But I also think that
Speaker 5: the style of play also results in that your lifestyle
Speaker 5: also that you know, it's it's you know, for me,
Speaker 5: I don't think it's just football. I think it's more
Speaker 5: than just football. It's your diet, like what you're eating,
Speaker 5: what you're drinking, what you doing with your life, how
Speaker 5: much sleep you getting it. It's more than just to
Speaker 5: me football, And you know, I try to play the game,
Speaker 5: you know, as violence as I can, but I also
Speaker 5: try to use my shoulder like when I tackle people
Speaker 5: I don't try to use my head. I try to
Speaker 5: use my shoulder as much as I can to avoid
Speaker 5: that for those specific reasons. But I definitely think like
Speaker 5: it's a thing. I think it's like thing that you
Speaker 5: got to be conscious for. But I also think there's
Speaker 5: ways that you can prepare yourself for. You can do
Speaker 5: some research for. There's a lot of things out there,
Speaker 5: like stem cells and different stuff like that that helps
Speaker 5: prevent or grow certain things. And so again like it's
Speaker 5: it's all about, you know, educating yourself and investing in
Speaker 5: certain things that's going to help you in the long
Speaker 5: run and help your life. And so I feel like
Speaker 5: I do those things. I feel like I play the
Speaker 5: game in a way where I, you know, try to
Speaker 5: avoid those crazy hits like that. And you know, it's
Speaker 5: not necessarily something I think about because I don't don't
Speaker 5: attracted try not to. I feel you Bobby has been
Speaker 5: a pleasure of my brothers, you guys a little know.
Speaker 5: In fact, I was actually a Seattle fan a few
Speaker 5: years ago. I switched teams every year. I'm like a
Speaker 5: few years ago Twitch every year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think I'm gonna go back to Seattle.
Speaker 2: City.
Speaker 5: K City was two years ago. I think Seattle that
Speaker 5: was a good team. You should go ahead do that.
Speaker 5: Think I'm going back to your favorite player. Yeah, you
Speaker 5: should do that. You should do that. Man, Come on, man,
Speaker 5: you were telling the story.
Speaker 2: Clint Porters is my favorite player.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 2: Taylor is on that listen, okay, and.
Speaker 5: I'm Bobby he's up there. Come on, man, come on, Jersey,
Speaker 5: we got come on, man, raised.
Speaker 3: We got to hang it up at the E y
Speaker 3: L headquarters.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we gotta. We need to sign Jersey. We'll get that,
Speaker 5: and we gotta go to the game.
Speaker 2: I have to experience with the twelve man is.
Speaker 5: I wait for it to open, when its over, when
Speaker 5: it's open, it's open, full capacity, and then pull up.
Speaker 5: It's gonna be crazy. Hopefully it doesn't rain. Now, I
Speaker 5: can't guarantee that. I can't guarantee that we'll come early
Speaker 5: in the season.
Speaker 3: Don't wait till later. We definitely got to table. We
Speaker 3: got paid this year. We got a lot of support
Speaker 3: in Seattle, and we haven't been up there, so we
Speaker 3: definitely have to come in Seattle.
Speaker 5: Sure, sure, for sure.
Speaker 3: Well, what would you like to tell people with some
Speaker 3: some things you'd like to leave them with?
Speaker 5: Oh man. I think over this last period of time
Speaker 5: with with COVID and everything, I think it's uh broad
Speaker 5: a realization to I think the world that you know,
Speaker 5: if you wasn't present before this time, it's important to
Speaker 5: be present and chaish those relationships that you have and
Speaker 5: be mindful about those relationships that you have, make sure
Speaker 5: you you know, continue to grow yourself and the people
Speaker 5: around you, because life is short. A lot of stuff
Speaker 5: that can be taken away at the instant, and I
Speaker 5: think this year has shown us how short life can be.
Speaker 5: And so I think that's something that I've I've learned
Speaker 5: over this time is you know, self love is important,
Speaker 5: also loving the people around you because you never know
Speaker 5: what they're going to be taken from you, and you know,
Speaker 5: being more present, you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 5: times we have so much going on that you know,
Speaker 5: you might be playing with your kids or playing with
Speaker 5: your you know, with your girl or whoever, and you're
Speaker 5: on your phone or you're on your computer and you're
Speaker 5: not really paying attention to them until you're in a
Speaker 5: situation when they're not there no more. So that's something
Speaker 5: I feel like throughout COVID is you know, I'm putting
Speaker 5: more of an emphasis on being more present, more self love,
Speaker 5: more love for the people around me, and being present
Speaker 5: and making sure I'm growing myself but also helping grow
Speaker 5: the people around me. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Brother, pleasure as always Troy House.
Speaker 2: Shout out support Black Houses, My God, just just so happy.
Speaker 5: Support Black College. I gotta get Red one. I'm not
Speaker 5: saying y'all give me. I'm saying, look just what I need.
Speaker 5: Red Yeah, dark green, another black love, black and gray.
Speaker 2: Josh, you heard it. We're gonna make that happen. Shout
Speaker 2: to everybody on picture on dot com that is up
Speaker 2: prop to paid program. Obviously Tier five members, you have
Speaker 2: access to E y L University. The number one place
Speaker 2: for everything in the business world is our baby. It's
Speaker 2: growing and over time we got over eight thousand members.
Speaker 2: So shout to all the earners that are in there,
Speaker 2: and shout out to everybody that supporting the merch and
Speaker 2: this season is here. That's what urch is here. Shout
Speaker 2: to the merch team, Shout the band, Shout to Smitey,
Speaker 2: Shout to the whole e y O staff man. Love
Speaker 2: from everybody over there, and uh yeah man eu y.
Speaker 3: O Sports soon comes. Thank you guys for rocking us.
Speaker 3: For see you next week.
Speaker 5: I might invest, some might invest.
Speaker 2: Fuse is involved.
Speaker 4: My graduates from my school being force back drop bag
Speaker 4: drop Mike drotdrop droft.
Speaker 6: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
Speaker 6: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
Speaker 6: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
Speaker 6: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
Speaker 6: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
Speaker 6: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States
Speaker 6: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
Speaker 6: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
Speaker 6: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
Speaker 6: were here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly
Speaker 6: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported, you will
Speaker 6: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
Speaker 6: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
Speaker 6: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
Speaker 6: border and families.
Speaker 5: Will be protected. Sponsored by the United States Department of
Speaker 5: Homeland Security,