Speaker 1: Comeback Stories is a production. I've Inflection Network and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: What's up, everybody. I'm Darren Waller. I'm tight End for
Speaker 2: the New York Giants. I'm also a husband, a brother,
Speaker 2: a son, an artist. Welcome back to Comeback Stories.
Speaker 3: And I'm Donnie Starkins, yoga, meditation teacher, personal development coach.
Speaker 3: And it's good to be back on the platform for
Speaker 3: Comeback Stories.
Speaker 2: We've got a special guest today, a man who's had
Speaker 2: a comeback story, but we'll let him tell you that
Speaker 2: he's been here for years. We've got Michael Smith. Michael,
Speaker 2: welcome to the show man.
Speaker 1: It's good to be with you, fellows. It's really good
Speaker 1: to be with y'all. Thank y'all for having me. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. A big fan of what y'all are doing.
Speaker 1: But Darren, can I start with a question, just curious
Speaker 1: have you gotten used to saying tight End for the
Speaker 1: New York Giants yet or is it still something you
Speaker 1: got to remind yourself as.
Speaker 2: Sir, I'm still working out the kinks on it.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: It's still like, wow, this is really true. And then
Speaker 2: it's like still putting on like blue shirts and in
Speaker 2: blue workout gear. I'm like, this is taking a little
Speaker 2: bit of time. It's cool, but yeah, still got to
Speaker 2: get best to it a little bit before we get
Speaker 2: into your story. I know that you're somebody that has
Speaker 2: lived some of your career on big stages, in front
Speaker 2: of people, in front of all of America, and in
Speaker 2: certain points of your career. Could you speak to some
Speaker 2: of that pressure, because I know that I can relate,
Speaker 2: and I can talk about all the fans and the
Speaker 2: game and all the pressure that that brings for me
Speaker 2: to succeed and make money all those things. But what
Speaker 2: is it like from your perspective?
Speaker 4: That's a great question, you know.
Speaker 1: I would say if I could relate it to what
Speaker 1: you do is reps, you know, and the more reps
Speaker 1: you do, the more comfortable you get, the more you
Speaker 1: stop thinking, the more it slows down.
Speaker 4: I remember the first time I did television. I was
Speaker 4: in Boston, and.
Speaker 1: Because I didn't go to school for television line you,
Speaker 1: I don't up to school to be a front journalist.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I look down my nose at television
Speaker 1: people because I was like, oh, you are real journalists,
Speaker 1: you know, you just you your make up and your
Speaker 1: cameras and you know, you know, you ain't telling the
Speaker 1: real stories of real real journalism is written word. I
Speaker 1: was one of those guys, even as a young kid.
Speaker 1: And so I was at the Boston Globe and I
Speaker 1: would have been, you know, about twenty two years old
Speaker 1: something like that, maybe even younger. And I went on
Speaker 1: a local television show and I remember you shaking, you know,
Speaker 1: like I mean, just like bouncing my leg, and I
Speaker 1: just was so nervous. I don't even remember if I
Speaker 1: can get a sentence out cleanly and you know, fast forward.
Speaker 4: And thankfully people didn't give up on me.
Speaker 1: And after doing thousands of hours of it, it just
Speaker 1: became second nature. And the best advice I got along
Speaker 1: the way was just to get better at being myself.
Speaker 1: And so I stopped magnifying mistakes. I stopped worrying about, honestly,
Speaker 1: what people thought. I never think about the people on
Speaker 1: the other side of that red light. So I imagine
Speaker 1: you might block out the people in the stands and
Speaker 1: just you know, focus on the person in front of you.
Speaker 1: I focus on a person next to me. I focus
Speaker 1: on the story I want to tell. I focus on
Speaker 1: the point I want to make. And it went from
Speaker 1: a nervous energy to an exciting energy, and I get
Speaker 1: a rush when that red light comes on. So I
Speaker 1: don't think of it as pressure as much as it
Speaker 1: is a privilege. And it became fun over the years
Speaker 1: just to connect with people, even if I couldn't see
Speaker 1: them or I didn't know them, I'm connecting with people
Speaker 1: through that camera lens and on the other side of
Speaker 1: that red light.
Speaker 4: It's beautiful. Man.
Speaker 3: Well, you started your career as a sports writer, right
Speaker 3: and then fifteen years with ESPN in a variety of
Speaker 3: roles reporter, host, commentator, anchor on Sports Center. But now
Speaker 3: you kind of are wearing multiple aps across the industry
Speaker 3: of peacock shows with my main man Michael Smith and
Speaker 3: brother from another with NFL Insider on Amazon on the
Speaker 3: Thursday Night show. And you're a media entrepreneur. You're the
Speaker 3: reason why we're here sitting together as the leader of
Speaker 3: this company. So but most importantly your a husband, Sarah
Speaker 3: and a father of three. So I wanted to give
Speaker 3: you a little bit of a proper per intro. But
Speaker 3: for that being yeah, with that being said, maybe you
Speaker 3: can take us back. Darren and I always dive deep
Speaker 3: and we go right into the story, and we would
Speaker 3: just like to know some context and maybe tell us
Speaker 3: what it was like growing up for you.
Speaker 4: Sure, I grew up in New Orleans. I'm the oldest
Speaker 4: of two. You know.
Speaker 1: My mom and my dad raised me until they got
Speaker 1: divorced about when I was about ten, and my stepdad
Speaker 1: came into our lives and loved us like we were
Speaker 1: his own. I am the grandson of a Baptist pastor,
Speaker 1: so I'm a preacher's grandkid. Served on an usher board.
Speaker 1: So one of the reasons I'm long when it is
Speaker 1: I got it. It runs in my family.
Speaker 4: You know. Other people say I'm a bit of a
Speaker 4: preacher on television. I got it. I got it honestly,
Speaker 4: if you will.
Speaker 1: Grew up in New Orleans and grew up around a
Speaker 1: lot of love, man, you know, and when I was
Speaker 1: growing up in New Orleans was a rough place, you know,
Speaker 1: probably at the highest murder rate per capital in the
Speaker 1: United States at the time. But I was I was
Speaker 1: shielded from a lot of that. To be hose with you,
Speaker 1: you know, I was aware of it. But you know
Speaker 1: I didn't want for anything growing up. I weren't rich,
Speaker 1: but you know, my mom did what she had to
Speaker 1: do to take care of us. My stepdad took care
Speaker 1: of us. I had a relationship, continued relationship with my father.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of role models. I went to
Speaker 1: McDonald thirty five, the first all black high school in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, nationally recognized Blue Ribbon school, so I had
Speaker 1: a great education.
Speaker 4: Went to Loyola University in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: So I stayed close to home and close to my
Speaker 1: family until I graduated, and I moved to Boston right
Speaker 1: out of college to work for the Boston Globe. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say, just my upbringing. Man, It's just I
Speaker 1: had so many people, you know. I had a village
Speaker 1: really simple and playing, whether it's my church family, my
Speaker 1: immediate family, my extended family, the community. I just had
Speaker 1: a lot of people behind me pushing me toward success.
Speaker 1: And I'm really really grateful for it. I got nothing
Speaker 1: but fond memories. You know, As a father, I often say,
Speaker 1: you know, our job is at our children to adulthood
Speaker 1: with as few scars as possible, physical and emotional and mental.
Speaker 1: I know that I am so blessed and so fortunate
Speaker 1: to be able to say that I didn't carry any
Speaker 1: trauma throughout my childhood. And into adulthood, and I think
Speaker 1: it's just one of the It's something I did not
Speaker 1: have to overcome, quite honestly, when it came to being
Speaker 1: a father and a husband, you know, and a citizen myself.
Speaker 1: And so I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for everybody
Speaker 1: that poured into me as a kid. And I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be where I am without my family and like I said,
Speaker 1: without my community and went up that village.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like you had a lot of support
Speaker 3: and a lot of love and maybe not a lot
Speaker 3: of trauma. But can you go back and can you
Speaker 3: remember an early memory of struggle or pain or anything
Speaker 3: that you saw in the world that kind of impacted you.
Speaker 1: You know, I would say initially, you know, my parents
Speaker 1: separated quite a bit. They were kind of they were
Speaker 1: always married, but on and off, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And so we moved around a lot. My dad was
Speaker 1: kind of in and out of I wouldn't see in
Speaker 1: it and out of the picture, because he was always
Speaker 1: you know, were always connected and close. He was always there,
Speaker 1: but in terms of like the nuclear family and in
Speaker 1: the household kind of in and out, as I recall.
Speaker 1: And then they got divorced a little bit after a
Speaker 1: little while after I turned ten.
Speaker 4: Initially that was tough, But like I said, I give
Speaker 4: a lot of credit to my.
Speaker 1: Stepdad, you know, for coming in and loving two boys
Speaker 1: that weren't his as if they were his. So that
Speaker 1: was that could have been challenging. And maybe it is
Speaker 1: in ways that I hadn't unpacked yet. But you know,
Speaker 1: whether my grandfather was like a father to me, my
Speaker 1: uncle was like a father to me, you know, uncles
Speaker 1: for that matter, you know, And I was all and
Speaker 1: again my stepdad stepped up. And then there's teachers who
Speaker 1: looked after me. So for some children, that might have
Speaker 1: been traumatic. And we haven't really talked about it, but
Speaker 1: I think it affected my younger brother maybe more than
Speaker 1: it affected me, at least on this on the level
Speaker 1: that I'm aware of. Again, it may be some stuff
Speaker 1: beneath the surface that I just haven't gotten too. So
Speaker 1: I'm not go say it didn't affect me. I guess
Speaker 1: it says something that was the first thing I referenced.
Speaker 1: Right beyond that, yeah, I would I would say I
Speaker 1: would say there was enough of a cushion and enough
Speaker 1: of a cocoon, and enough arms being you know, put
Speaker 1: around me to where I wouldn't say that I missed.
Speaker 1: And again my dad wasn't around. He moved away and
Speaker 1: lived in Miami. I lived in New Orleans. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't like he wasn't there when you know, when I
Speaker 1: told my a cl my senior year high school playing football,
Speaker 1: he was at that game and he was there, you know.
Speaker 1: So you know, I don't want to paint the picture like,
Speaker 1: you know, like I was abandoned. No, far from it.
Speaker 1: But that was an adjustment and a challenge more than
Speaker 1: it was I would say a struggle. But if I
Speaker 1: had the points of probably the most traumatic thing as
Speaker 1: it relates to my family, I was older and I
Speaker 1: had grown up, and I you know, moved to Boston
Speaker 1: and just started my family. But obviously a Hurricane Katrina
Speaker 1: was very difficult for my family. They had to evacuate
Speaker 1: to Boston and lived with me and my wife. My
Speaker 1: parents lost everything, my grandparents or my grandmother. My grandfather
Speaker 1: had passed by then my grand mother lost everything. You know,
Speaker 1: displacement that they're that trauma is real, and it's still
Speaker 1: its generational and I still annoy that we've properly identified
Speaker 1: how much that reverbates or you know, from the generations
Speaker 1: of people who experienced Katrina as adults, as kids, and
Speaker 1: even their kids. I don't know that we can properly
Speaker 1: quantify that, but yeah, I would I would say I
Speaker 1: would say that's split between my parents is the probably
Speaker 1: the earliest memory beyond that the eighteen years I spent
Speaker 1: under my mom's roof. You know, it wasn't always you know,
Speaker 1: peaches and cream, you know what I'm saying. You know,
Speaker 1: I got into it my stepdad. I was a hard
Speaker 1: headed you know, I was in you know, but I
Speaker 1: didn't get any trouble. I didn't run with the wrong crowd.
Speaker 1: And I think part of that too is just like
Speaker 1: a being a preacher's kid and my grandfather, you know,
Speaker 1: it was kind of a big deal in New Oranes,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. You know, his church was
Speaker 1: the first one broadcast over the radios. So it's like
Speaker 1: people kind of knew who I was, and they knew
Speaker 1: where I was going. And so I lived in a
Speaker 1: pretty decent part of town. Even the opportunities to stray
Speaker 1: were met with. Hey man, you know, you were a
Speaker 1: straight a student. You know this, this this ain't for you.
Speaker 1: You're on a path. Let's keep you on that path,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I can relate a lot to what you said about
Speaker 3: My parents divorced when I was seven, and I would
Speaker 3: always say this was up until about two years ago
Speaker 3: and I'm forty five years old now, but I would
Speaker 3: always say, my parents made the best out of the
Speaker 3: what could have been a bad situation. They you know,
Speaker 3: they got divorced when I was seven or eight. They've
Speaker 3: always been cordial, they really did, and from my perspective,
Speaker 3: seemed like they were making it about the kids. But
Speaker 3: it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I,
Speaker 3: with some outside help and therapy, that I identified that
Speaker 3: I'm the youngest of four and ultimately went to live
Speaker 3: with my dad. I would see my mom a couple
Speaker 3: times a week. But there's like legit trauma there that
Speaker 3: I never even realized, because it's like, now I'm separated
Speaker 3: from my mom and I'm the youngest of four and
Speaker 3: I'm a mama's boy, and there was a lot there
Speaker 3: and I never really realized it. And you know, with
Speaker 3: that new awareness, it was just like, actually, that probably
Speaker 3: did have an impact on me. So yeah, I can
Speaker 3: relate a lot to what you're sharing, and it was
Speaker 3: like I just assumed that this was it was kind
Speaker 3: of normal. We just adapted.
Speaker 2: Michael, you've discussed your pain with as far as your
Speaker 2: parents separation. I want to know what role did your
Speaker 2: passion for storytelling play.
Speaker 4: In the process.
Speaker 2: Was that a way for you to escape that or
Speaker 2: was it a way to find joy in that process? Like,
Speaker 2: take me through your journey as developing your passion at
Speaker 2: the same time of dealing with this pain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, you know, I didn't grow up.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a German. I didn't I didn't write story
Speaker 1: I wasn't somebody who kept the journal.
Speaker 4: I always loved movies, always loved movies.
Speaker 1: And my uncle and I, my grandfather and I and
Speaker 1: even my grandmother as well, bonded over movies.
Speaker 4: We watched the same movies all over all the time,
Speaker 4: over and over again.
Speaker 1: And because again I grew up the grandson of a
Speaker 1: Baptist pastor and first lady, it was only certain types
Speaker 1: of movies we could watch from my grandparents' house.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You know, I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't throw all
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, you know Eddie Murphy Raw or something
Speaker 1: like that at my grandparents house. But uh, you know,
Speaker 1: love always loved movies as much as as I love sports.
Speaker 1: My grandfather and I would have a race to the
Speaker 1: newspaper to uh get the sports section to read about
Speaker 1: the Saints and and and the dispattus from Lacrosse, Wisconsin
Speaker 1: and training camp. And looking back, that that's the origin
Speaker 1: of my obsession with team building, with reporting with detail
Speaker 1: and uh and I just read. I read the sports
Speaker 1: section in particular cover to cover, and in terms of writing,
Speaker 1: I guess that I got pushed into that. More about
Speaker 1: my high school teachers who thought I had a gift
Speaker 1: for it. I did not grow up with a dream
Speaker 1: of being a sports writer, which I ended up being
Speaker 1: right out of college or during college. But what's interesting
Speaker 1: is it's somehow you manifest stuff and don't even know it.
Speaker 1: So I was the salutatory in my high school graduating
Speaker 1: class class ninety seven the local newspaper, The Times, Picking
Speaker 1: un which I would go on to work at The
Speaker 1: Times picking You. They did like a little Q and
Speaker 1: A with me, and they asked me what my dream
Speaker 1: job was and would you believe at seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: I say, as Sports Center ranker, I think it was
Speaker 1: because I grew up watching like a Stuart Scott. It
Speaker 1: was inspired by that, and like everybody else was obsessed
Speaker 1: with you know, ESPN, and I didn't pursue broadcasting. I
Speaker 1: ended up, you know, like I said, during a high
Speaker 1: school internship at the Times picking You, doing a college
Speaker 1: internship at the Times picking un in New Orleans, and
Speaker 1: then twice at the Boston Globe for two summers. And
Speaker 1: when I got out of college, I was a you know,
Speaker 1: obviously went back to the Boston Robe to work full time.
Speaker 1: And even that first internship at the time speaking You
Speaker 1: only came about because I was like, well to summer school,
Speaker 1: like a summer job. And they called me and I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, we've never had a sports intern. Would
Speaker 1: you like to be out of sports intern? I was like, sure,
Speaker 1: you mean I get paid to write about sports, sign
Speaker 1: me up.
Speaker 4: And honestly, that's where that's where it started.
Speaker 1: It started from again, somebody looking out from me and
Speaker 1: having me an opportunity, and I just took it in
Speaker 1: the ring with it.
Speaker 2: It looks like from you had a pretty good job
Speaker 2: a getting with the Boston Globe, like right, out of college.
Speaker 2: Look like you had a lot of ambition to pursue
Speaker 2: this and it looked like it served you in a way.
Speaker 2: But ultimately with uh, we'll get into how your story
Speaker 2: ends up playing out. Do you ever feel like your
Speaker 2: ambition was like hindering you in a way or hindering
Speaker 2: maybe your perspective potentially at any point in your journey?
Speaker 1: Oh god, yes, oh my god, Oh we could be
Speaker 1: we could we just spend all day just on that,
Speaker 1: you know, like I think, and because my career was
Speaker 1: on such a fast track, so like just to little
Speaker 1: quick recap. It's like, so I intern at the time
Speaker 1: speaking year after my freshman year of college. Then I
Speaker 1: interned at the Boston Globe after my sophomore in junior years,
Speaker 1: and they had never been a two time Boston Globe intern,
Speaker 1: let alone sports intern. And at the time, the Boston
Speaker 1: Globe was the premiere or pre eminent sports section in
Speaker 1: the country, like talking about Super Team, Dream Team, Boston
Speaker 1: Globe sports staff, right, So then they say come back
Speaker 1: after college.
Speaker 4: So I'm twenty one years old at the Boston Globe.
Speaker 1: They knew how much I loved covering pro football, so
Speaker 1: I'm helping out not the main beat writer, but the
Speaker 1: backup beat right on the Patriots beat. And if you
Speaker 1: do the math, that's the that's the two thousand and
Speaker 1: one season, two thousand and two Super Bowl. So I'm
Speaker 1: back in New Orleans less than a year after graduating
Speaker 1: high school covering the Super Bowl for the Boston Globe.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna talk about perspective, I had none, Okay.
Speaker 1: And then two years later they started a TV show
Speaker 1: where they're gonna put cameras in the inside of a
Speaker 1: newsroom and it's gonna be sports writers from around the country.
Speaker 4: Twenty years later, that TV show is still on television.
Speaker 4: That's around the Horn.
Speaker 1: So I'm twenty three, twenty four years old on National
Speaker 1: freaking Television on ESPN.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: And then at twenty four years old, ESPN's like, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you come work for us full time? So
Speaker 1: the very thing that people spend their whole lives trying
Speaker 1: to achieve and the place they spend their whole careers
Speaker 1: trying to get to, I was there three years out
Speaker 1: of college.
Speaker 4: I had a couple of coffee.
Speaker 1: At the Boston Gold Farm at ESPN and on National Television,
Speaker 1: and I and so what I The only regret I
Speaker 1: have there is that I never appreciated the journey because
Speaker 1: I was always so fixated on what was next and
Speaker 1: more and the rat race, and I never appreciated how
Speaker 1: far I come and how quickly I come that far.
Speaker 1: And I don't think I enjoyed it as much, to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, I don't think I enjoy what
Speaker 1: I was doing. And it took a while for me
Speaker 1: to get to a place of enjoying what I was doing.
Speaker 1: And by a while, I mean only really the last
Speaker 1: few years for me to really appreciate what I did,
Speaker 1: what I had the opportunity to do, what I achieved,
Speaker 1: and how I achieved it. But man, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just it's almost like a rookie that just kind of
Speaker 1: like dominates right out to gat me, like oh this
Speaker 1: is easy, or you know, like Da Marino back in
Speaker 1: the day going to the Super Bowl his second year,
Speaker 1: like oh, I'm gonna be here all the time.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like that for me. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is what it's supposed to be. And so I
Speaker 1: was completely a devoted perspective.
Speaker 2: Yes, So what you're saying is it almost is like
Speaker 2: you had to have it taken from you to really
Speaker 2: appreciate it.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Boy, you're good at this. Yes, you
Speaker 1: would seeing right through me. Man, Yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: I had to. I had to experience. So that's another thing, man,
Speaker 1: Like I was, I did not know what professional adversity was.
Speaker 1: Most people, you know, have to grind and they have
Speaker 1: to start off in like a small market. And you know,
Speaker 1: I made more money my first job out of college
Speaker 1: than my parents made in any year or years of
Speaker 1: combined my entire life, like right out of college, you know,
Speaker 1: and then I go to ESPN and I made X
Speaker 1: times that.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like, so I just never experienced the rough side
Speaker 1: of the mountain that so many people have to experience
Speaker 1: in this business out of college, whether it's freelancing or
Speaker 1: whether it's working at a small market or you know,
Speaker 1: I was just it all came so quickly and so easily.
Speaker 4: It wasn't until.
Speaker 1: You know, my late thirties then I actually that linear
Speaker 1: or that that accelerated path that meteoric rise was interrupted.
Speaker 1: And so that was challenging to, like I said, to
Speaker 1: have it taken away from me. And yes, the blessing
Speaker 1: in the struggle was being able to appreciate what I'd done,
Speaker 1: what i accomplished, what I'd experienced, what I've been blessed
Speaker 1: with and gifted with. But also honestly, you know, look
Speaker 1: at myself in a different way. And that and that
Speaker 1: that was that was helpful, and I needed that. I
Speaker 1: needed that struggle to, uh to better appreciate my blessings.
Speaker 1: I counted my blessings uh more deliberately when it got hard,
Speaker 1: and and and that and that was. I appreciate that
Speaker 1: because I don't I think maybe I would have just
Speaker 1: gone on taking it all for granted and thinking that
Speaker 1: it was normal.
Speaker 3: You know, It's like you don't know what you have
Speaker 3: until it's until it's gone. And space, I always like
Speaker 3: to say space. Space creates appreciation. And I've heard you
Speaker 3: say early on that you were allowing that submission.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, because see I was so I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I also hit the sidebar real quick. I was just
Speaker 1: trying to thok my My stepdad is an accomplished singer,
Speaker 1: and my parents have an R and B band down
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, right, so I we had I grew
Speaker 1: up in a musical family like Vinyl everywhere, band Rehearson
Speaker 1: in the living room. And so you said spaceally creates appreciation.
Speaker 1: My mind went to Jeffrey osborn An Ltd. Concentrate on you.
Speaker 1: It takes separation to bring appreciation. So you preach it
Speaker 1: right there. That's how I use that line on the town.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I love it.
Speaker 3: And but you had said early on, I've heard you
Speaker 3: say that you let your ambition get in the way
Speaker 3: of your appreciation. And that's so early or so often
Speaker 3: early in your career it was seeking external validation, which
Speaker 3: of course if you're in your twenty twenty two, twenty
Speaker 3: three years old I it brought me back to where
Speaker 3: I was at at that age and just so concerned
Speaker 3: with what other people thought about me, the external other
Speaker 3: people's opinions, because I had no tools. I'm still a
Speaker 3: young kid, you know. Even just performance based sports, everything
Speaker 3: is statistics. If you you got to be good enough
Speaker 3: to make the team, and then to make the team,
Speaker 3: you got to it was all about other people's opinions.
Speaker 3: And so it would make sense that you were so
Speaker 3: so much seeking for that external validation because you're just
Speaker 3: a kid still thrust into that world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know if it was as much seeking external validation, because
Speaker 1: I mean I think it might. Actually, honestly, Donnie might
Speaker 1: have been the opposite extreme, which is like you couldn't
Speaker 1: tell me shit.
Speaker 4: It's like you could. I mean, I'm twenty three, twenty four.
Speaker 1: Years old at ESPN on national television with people twice
Speaker 1: my age, if not more, holding my own.
Speaker 4: I thought I had it all figured out.
Speaker 1: I thought I had all the answers, and that lack
Speaker 1: of perspective manifested itself and being impatient, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, you know, I wanted things that frankly
Speaker 1: I was not ready for. You know, I didn't trust
Speaker 1: the process.
Speaker 4: You know, I can.
Speaker 1: Only imagine how people listen, no matter how much of
Speaker 1: a wondercund I was, no matter how much of a
Speaker 1: prodigy I was. I can only imagine how people who
Speaker 1: had grinded and paid their dues and experienced things and
Speaker 1: seeing things must have looked at this kid, you know who.
Speaker 1: That's not that I lacked humility. I think I've always
Speaker 1: carried myself with the level of humility, But you know,
Speaker 1: I just I didn't understand what it meant to just
Speaker 1: kind of like wait, my turn and how everything came
Speaker 1: would come and do time and accordance with God's plan.
Speaker 1: It's like I wanted I wanted at all. I wanted
Speaker 1: it now, you know what I mean. If I didn't
Speaker 1: get it now, I'm like, well, why am I not
Speaker 1: getting it now?
Speaker 4: You know? I'm now.
Speaker 1: It's not it's maybe this is somewhat external validation, maybe,
Speaker 1: or it's maybe it's a very close relative of external validation.
Speaker 1: But it's like comparing myself to other people, or why
Speaker 1: is he doing that and I'm not? You know, why
Speaker 1: is he getting that and I'm not? You know, I'm
Speaker 1: better than him and I should be here and I
Speaker 1: should be doing this and I should have that, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's like that type of stuff, that comparison game.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this is pre social media, you know,
Speaker 1: because it only amplified with social media. The highlight film
Speaker 1: that everybody is paying attention to. Yeah, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of that robbed me of that perspective that we
Speaker 1: a litle too earlier.
Speaker 2: When you talk about the level of confidence and ego
Speaker 2: that you have, like I'm him, like I'm here. I
Speaker 2: feel like for me and my experience when moments that
Speaker 2: come that may threaten that thought I have about myself.
Speaker 2: It's easy for me to slip into self doubt. Do
Speaker 2: you feel like you felt that way when it seemed
Speaker 2: like the career that you built was now uncertain?
Speaker 4: Yes, and that always confused me.
Speaker 1: Maybe y'all can help me with that, because you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot there were times despite my confidence
Speaker 1: and bravado and how self assured I was, there was
Speaker 1: also some impostle syndrome. And I'm not sureing how those
Speaker 1: two things can coexist. I'm not sophisticated enough to break
Speaker 1: down how those can co exist because I always thought
Speaker 1: that am I gonna get exposed? And then when I would?
Speaker 1: You know, and when I say, I did not experience
Speaker 1: real professional adversity back in those days, and I guess
Speaker 1: we're at the time period where I'm in my early
Speaker 1: twenties and I'm on the fast track and my mid
Speaker 1: twenties or whatever. Back in those days, I thought I
Speaker 1: was experiencing adversity, but didn't really know what adversity was.
Speaker 1: In hindsight, right, you know, there was a lot of uh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, am I as good as I think I am?
Speaker 1: And Okay, down there there's the external validation, right, So
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 4: Like, am I really am I really? Am? Am I
Speaker 4: fooling myself? You know?
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm Maybe I'm not all that in a bag
Speaker 1: of chips, you know, and maybe this is all there
Speaker 1: is for me. Maybe what I want, what I'm dreaming of,
Speaker 1: will never come, maybe it's not for me. And then
Speaker 1: there was all sort of resentment. So that's the internal part.
Speaker 1: Then there's the what they don't appreciate me, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't, they don't they don't see the start that
Speaker 1: I am. They don't you know, I'm not getting what
Speaker 1: I deserve, you know, they sleeping on your boy, all
Speaker 1: that type of stuff. So it's it kind of vacillated
Speaker 1: between uh, some self doubt and then some resentment and.
Speaker 4: Frustration and professional frustration about.
Speaker 1: Feeling like I wasn't getting, you know, what I wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, or what I deserved better, better what I
Speaker 1: deserved when I should have gotten it.
Speaker 3: Darren, can you relate to that imposter syndrome? I know
Speaker 3: we've talked about it a bunch. I know I have it,
Speaker 3: but I I'd love to hear your thoughts and how
Speaker 3: you work through that on the stage that you have.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I got. I have two. I have two
Speaker 2: things for you. One I don't know if I've shared
Speaker 2: either one of these, but one is twenty twenty, we
Speaker 2: played the New York Jets, which is actually the day
Speaker 2: before was the day we recorded the very first episode
Speaker 2: of Comeback Stories. Had to plug that in there. But
Speaker 2: the Jets game, I had two hundred yards receiving that game,
Speaker 2: and very easily could have been more if there were
Speaker 2: a couple of little things that I could have done differently.
Speaker 2: But the next practice we have on Wednesday, I think
Speaker 2: I drop a pass like in routes on air, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't even know why I'm building a
Speaker 2: house out here. They're gonna shit me out of this place.
Speaker 2: Like that's how quick my mind can shift. I've two
Speaker 2: hundred yards. I think there's only been four tight ends
Speaker 2: in the history of the NFL that I've ever done
Speaker 2: what I've just done. And I come and I meet
Speaker 2: a moment of not even real adversity, just a human
Speaker 2: experience in this game that I play, and I'm so
Speaker 2: quick to go to the complete other end of the spectrum.
Speaker 2: And my sponsor paints a picture that's so vivid if
Speaker 2: you look at a spectrum, right, and there's there's a
Speaker 2: one and a ten. A ten is you're being an egomaniac,
Speaker 2: and a one would be you're so anti ego that
Speaker 2: you don't even really have true humility or affirm your
Speaker 2: own strengths. And my sponsors like, brother, we got to
Speaker 2: get you to a five, like meditate on that, like
Speaker 2: what does a five look like? What does a balance
Speaker 2: look like? To where you can show up and be
Speaker 2: confident in what you bring to the table without having
Speaker 2: to flex it on everybody else or be seen for it,
Speaker 2: but really to truly just embody your truest energy and
Speaker 2: your truest self and show up in that manner. And
Speaker 2: it's still an ongoing practice for me. I'm sure it's
Speaker 2: an ongoing practice for all of us. It's something that
Speaker 2: we have to keep in the forefront of our mind.
Speaker 2: And Michael, I feel like you're starting and really starting
Speaker 2: to get that because you've experienced what people would see
Speaker 2: as shiny and sexy success being on the six PM
Speaker 2: Sports Center slot, but that wasn't ultimately fulfilling for you.
Speaker 2: But now being able to be in a position where
Speaker 2: telling your own stories and doing what you want to
Speaker 2: do is that much more fulfilling, Like how does one
Speaker 2: arrive to that point?
Speaker 4: How did I arrive to that point?
Speaker 1: One of the things I like about this show, you know,
Speaker 1: as a storyteller, it certainly resonates for me, is how
Speaker 1: you guys talk about the story you tell yourselves.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I'll try to. It's very very complicated.
Speaker 1: Literally books have been written about it, but I'll try
Speaker 1: to summarize the inflection point, you know, which is why
Speaker 1: I name my company Inflection Point Entertainment when I found
Speaker 1: it back in twenty twenty, because that's when the story
Speaker 1: gets good.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I just don't know it.
Speaker 1: I get my own show back in twenty eleven, I
Speaker 1: would have been for mathis right, that's what thirty two.
Speaker 1: It becomes a hit. Around twenty fourteen, it really starts
Speaker 1: to take off. Twenty seventeen, I get that job that
Speaker 1: I manifested as a teenager. I had no idea what
Speaker 1: I was saying as a sports center ancor on a
Speaker 1: six PM a sports center.
Speaker 4: In short, it was a disaster for a number.
Speaker 1: Of reasons, which we can get into, or we could
Speaker 1: say that for another time, because y'all only got.
Speaker 4: So much time.
Speaker 1: But you know, I was in professional limbo from I
Speaker 1: would say twenty eighteen. March Night twenty eighteen was my
Speaker 1: last Sports Center March ninth to twenty eighteen to September
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen. It so about eighteen months I was
Speaker 1: in professional limbo, just kind of off the grid. I
Speaker 1: was off the grid, but I was in my own
Speaker 1: head quite a bit, and it took me a while
Speaker 1: and a couple of startups to get to a point
Speaker 1: where I started to tell myself the story in which
Speaker 1: that chapter, that ESPN chapter or chapters were necessary, and
Speaker 1: be grateful for those chapters because, like with every story,
Speaker 1: those chapters proceeded and set up and laid the foundation
Speaker 1: for what was to come. And once I could get
Speaker 1: past my bitterness and resentment that I felt about how
Speaker 1: what I think, if I may say so, it was
Speaker 1: a damn good fifteen year run how it ended, I
Speaker 1: was able to appreciate it and count it all joy
Speaker 1: and celebrated and not be ashamed of anything. And even
Speaker 1: the idea I was thinking about this, you know, I
Speaker 1: was gonna talk to you guys, the idea of a comeback.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: When I think of comebacks, I think of, well, I'm
Speaker 1: trailing or I'm losing or I'm behind, but according to
Speaker 1: whose scoreboard?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I was winning the whole time.
Speaker 1: But my perspective was I had suffered a loss or
Speaker 1: a setback. Wasn't It wasn't a setback. It was just
Speaker 1: the end of one chapter but at the beginning of
Speaker 1: another one, and I was just moving in a different direction,
Speaker 1: but still moving forward. Nonetheless, I had to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: which means to change your mind.
Speaker 4: I had to.
Speaker 1: I had to change my mind in my paradigm from man,
Speaker 1: I'm holding the l to okay, I'm actually being pushed
Speaker 1: and moved into more of my purpose. I was using
Speaker 1: this comparison to somebody earlier. It's kind of like it's
Speaker 1: kind of like renting a house versus buying it, you know,
Speaker 1: like owning a house is a.
Speaker 4: Pain in the ass, you know, But I wouldn't rent.
Speaker 4: I prefer to own my own home.
Speaker 1: And now I'm owning my career in a way that
Speaker 1: I didn't no matter how much I was getting paid,
Speaker 1: no matter how recognizable I was, butter how successful I was,
Speaker 1: I didn't own those ideas, that intellectual property.
Speaker 4: I didn't own that platform. And I learned that the
Speaker 4: hard way, right, I.
Speaker 1: Now can tell my own stories and empower other people
Speaker 1: to tell their stories and to own their stories and
Speaker 1: to own their narratives. And that started with me owning
Speaker 1: like as you guys often say, owning my own narrative
Speaker 1: and not letting other people write my story for me,
Speaker 1: like not what kind of story tell myself? But what
Speaker 1: kind of story am I writing for myself? And what
Speaker 1: is my next chapter? Who are the characters that need
Speaker 1: to be written out of my story? Who are the
Speaker 1: people that I want to introduce into my story? Where
Speaker 1: do I want to take my story? Like I'm in
Speaker 1: complete control of how I contextualize that. And it just
Speaker 1: took me a while, a lot of dark days, a
Speaker 1: lot of sleepless nights, a lot of anxiety to work
Speaker 1: through that to be comfortable with where I was and
Speaker 1: where I was going to answer a question like that's
Speaker 1: how I got to a point where I'm fulfilled in
Speaker 1: what I'm doing because my next chapter is challenging in
Speaker 1: a way that my last one wasn't you know, And
Speaker 1: even if I don't, you know, succeed in the same ways,
Speaker 1: successes look different. And so now I'm keeping my own
Speaker 1: score and so my wins are up to me to
Speaker 1: determine what are my wins or if I view something
Speaker 1: as a loss. And that was the shift for me,
Speaker 1: is to not look at the way things ended at
Speaker 1: ESPN as a law as a setback from which I
Speaker 1: had to come back from.
Speaker 4: Like no, it was just a setup for what was.
Speaker 3: Next ownership that we were just talking about this on
Speaker 3: a previous conversation Darren and I were having where my
Speaker 3: life completely changed when I started to take ownership and
Speaker 3: started blaming stop blaming everybody else for my problems. And
Speaker 3: you also mentioned success, and I think it's so important
Speaker 3: to come up with our own definition of success because
Speaker 3: the hook and I think why a lot of people
Speaker 3: are unhappy is because they're basing their success on somebody
Speaker 3: else's definition, which is why it's so important to look
Speaker 3: at our values and come up with our own definition
Speaker 3: of success. With that gap and not working, it was
Speaker 3: too I think you said twenty eighteen to twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I was still with I was still with ESPN.
Speaker 1: This is how messed up I was and how hard
Speaker 1: it was. It's like I was still getting paid a
Speaker 1: lot of money to not work. But that was such
Speaker 1: a mind job, because you know, I never did it
Speaker 1: for the money, and my routine was so interrupted.
Speaker 4: And I can unpack that a little bit more later.
Speaker 1: But I was still with ESPN, but was unable to
Speaker 1: appreciate the blessing that that stretch was for all the
Speaker 1: anxiety about what was next and all the resentment about
Speaker 1: what had just happened. But go ahead, Donnie, Sorry, I
Speaker 1: just want to clarify it.
Speaker 4: I was. I was still there, but just not as prominent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just going to say, what was with
Speaker 3: all of that happening? Did you have a lowest point?
Speaker 3: I mean, Darren and I have lowest points. There were
Speaker 3: the result of an addiction, which was which much of
Speaker 3: it was self inflicted. But can you take us to
Speaker 3: maybe your lowest point?
Speaker 4: Oo? Man, Okay. And the reason I struggle to pick
Speaker 4: one hour is because it was such.
Speaker 1: A stretch, like I don't know, I don't know that
Speaker 1: there was one ground zero or you know, I'd have
Speaker 1: to think about it.
Speaker 4: I just know that I was I was a shell
Speaker 4: of myself.
Speaker 1: I would say I was just in a fog for
Speaker 1: a long time and I just couldn't I felt like
Speaker 1: a prisoner. I think somebody wrote about it, and they
Speaker 1: said that, you know, these gold plated handcuffs that I had,
Speaker 1: I was making a shit ton of money to do nothing.
Speaker 1: And I, Okay, this isn't a point, Donny, but this
Speaker 1: is a I guess this is an example. I stopped
Speaker 1: watching sports altogether because I couldn't watch sports because for
Speaker 1: fifteen for almost twenty years, I had consumed sports through
Speaker 1: the prism of somebody who was a part of that
Speaker 1: machine as far as well, I'm watching this game, and
Speaker 1: I'm formulating opinions and thoughts and crystallizing my perspective of
Speaker 1: my commentary that I'm going to now present to the
Speaker 1: masses tomorrow. I got a showlder do, I got a
Speaker 1: job to do, and so I had to go to restaurants,
Speaker 1: for example, and make sure that my back was to
Speaker 1: the television because I couldn't watch ESPN because it was triggering,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was at home. You know, my
Speaker 1: favorite event as the NFL Draft. It's my favorite sporting event,
Speaker 1: which speaks to the nerd that I am. And I
Speaker 1: couldn't watch the NFL Draft because all I could think
Speaker 1: about was the years that I was a part of
Speaker 1: the NFL Draft coverage. I couldn't watch, you know, any
Speaker 1: of the talk shows because all I would think about
Speaker 1: was I should still be doing that.
Speaker 4: I should still I should still be I should still
Speaker 4: be a part of that. All it did was remind
Speaker 4: me of opening those old wounds and remind me of
Speaker 4: that of that trauma. You know, I had to distance
Speaker 4: myself from sports for a long time until I was
Speaker 4: pulled back in it in twenty twenty, you know, and
Speaker 4: my son actually brought me back into it, to be
Speaker 4: honest with you, because I realized that I was robbing
Speaker 4: him of some experiences with his father. And I got
Speaker 4: back into sports when I started to kind of view
Speaker 4: it through his eyes and the innocence of his eyes,
Speaker 4: and you know, took him to some.
Speaker 1: Games and watch some games with him as he grew older.
Speaker 1: And he's fifteen now, but he was just starting to
Speaker 1: really get into it when I was stopped being selfish
Speaker 1: about it and saying, all right, I don't want to
Speaker 1: watch it because it was hurting me. But the joy
Speaker 1: that he was getting out of it and the bonding
Speaker 1: that we were able to experience that also brought me
Speaker 1: back into sports. But I would say, you know, and
Speaker 1: if a moment comes to me, I'll share it. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't remember like one out of the
Speaker 1: many sleepless nights, I can't remember one, you know, out
Speaker 1: of the many. It was a time when I just
Speaker 1: I couldn't go a day without going down that hole,
Speaker 1: that rabbit hole. I couldn't, you know. And mind you,
Speaker 1: I still live in Connecticut. I'm still a stone's throw
Speaker 1: away from ESPN. And somebody told me a long time ago,
Speaker 1: you can't kill where you got sick. And so I
Speaker 1: would drive past that place and I would have to
Speaker 1: almost like cut off my peripheral vision so that I
Speaker 1: didn't look in that direction.
Speaker 4: Like it was a hard, difficult.
Speaker 1: Shit like I was like my like my head is
Speaker 1: just was just like I had so many thoughts and
Speaker 1: I kept flashing back to moments and what could I
Speaker 1: have done differently? And was it? Was it really my fault?
Speaker 1: And you know, how could this have happened to me?
Speaker 1: And like y'all remember that movie Kill Bill, Volume two
Speaker 1: when the bride finally meets Bill at the end and.
Speaker 4: She said, you know, could you do that? Yes? But
Speaker 4: I never thought you could do that to me.
Speaker 1: Somewhere along the line, I got it twisted that I
Speaker 1: would never be shown the door, you know. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's because I thought I was so
Speaker 1: good or because I had such a long tenure, but
Speaker 1: it was like I was completely mind fucked, you know,
Speaker 1: for the longest stretch of time. It's really I guess
Speaker 1: time is the point, like time heals all wounds. And
Speaker 1: you know, once I started to kind of like just
Speaker 1: really move forward and really embrace where I was as
Speaker 1: opposed to looking back on where I had come from
Speaker 1: and where I thought I should still be. Once that unlocked,
Speaker 1: that that changed everything for me. And I'll tell you what,
Speaker 1: I don't miss it at all, not a you know not.
Speaker 1: I never sit around and say, oh I wish I.
Speaker 4: Was still there. Never I wouldn't. I'm glad.
Speaker 1: And the funny thing is, for a long time, I said,
Speaker 1: this goes back to ego. For a long time, I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to spend fifteen years at ESPN and leave
Speaker 1: when I was when I'm forty years old. I spent
Speaker 1: fifteen years at ESPN and left when I was forty
Speaker 1: years old. It was the how that I left that
Speaker 1: messed me up. I wanted to be the one to
Speaker 1: break up with them. I wanted to be the one
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, it's been real. I wanted
Speaker 1: bigger and better. I had no idea I was going
Speaker 1: to take a buyout and kind of leave with a whimper.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I thought I'd get a cake and shit and a
Speaker 1: special and a moon tage of all my greatest moments,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like, nah, I play Daddy
Speaker 1: Hide ends for all of us. Everybody came right off
Speaker 1: into the sunset. But I remember the sun shining real
Speaker 1: bright the day I decided I'm not just gonna sit
Speaker 1: here in Limbo, I'm going to leave. And I drove off,
Speaker 1: and I remember the weather. The birds were singing, the
Speaker 1: weather was beautiful, and I handed my ID badge into
Speaker 1: the security guard for the last time, and I felt
Speaker 1: so free for a moment. I still had some trauma
Speaker 1: to work through after that, but I felt free for
Speaker 1: that moment. And now I just feel like I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to be here, and I was supposed to go through
Speaker 1: all that for a reason to be here with y'all.
Speaker 2: Right now, man, oh man, wow, I got that marinate
Speaker 2: for a second.
Speaker 4: I hope I'm not rambling too much. Man, It's just
Speaker 4: you know, y'all.
Speaker 2: Just no, No, that's just it's so, it's just it's
Speaker 2: just so, it's just so powerful, you know, Like I man,
Speaker 2: I have a gold plated handcuffs experience myself getting to
Speaker 2: the NFL drafted. I'm with the Baltimore Ravens. Every single
Speaker 2: goal that could be on a sheet of paper, I've
Speaker 2: checked off, and I've never never been more miserable making
Speaker 2: great money. You know, everybody knows who I am. Everybody
Speaker 2: from my hometown holds me in a certain puts me
Speaker 2: on a pedestal because of what I've done. And I
Speaker 2: was like, this is all I've ever wanted, and it
Speaker 2: ends up being the most painful internally to the point
Speaker 2: to the point where I wanted to self sabotage it
Speaker 2: and not wanted to succeeded in self sabotaging it, because
Speaker 2: not only was I struggling with do I even deserve this?
Speaker 2: But this is it was so much pain of like,
Speaker 2: this is what I've been searching for all my life,
Speaker 2: and this is all that it was to stomach. That
Speaker 2: was a lot. And when I got banned from the
Speaker 2: league for a year, go to rehab, come back, get
Speaker 2: a job working at Sprouts, like there's no intention on
Speaker 2: me ever returning to football. Like I was like you, like,
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to watch football games. I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to go to my college or my high school and
Speaker 2: be like this is a guy that made it to
Speaker 2: I wanted nothing to do with any of that, but
Speaker 2: it was literally the authentic joy in the relationship with
Speaker 2: the guy that I was training with. His name is
Speaker 2: Nakway Mac and getting out there back on the field
Speaker 2: and just filling the grass underneath my feet, you know,
Speaker 2: running through the same drills and just being immersed in
Speaker 2: the moment of just improving my craft. We were sharing
Speaker 2: the field with a high school team seven on seventeen
Speaker 2: and let us get like the twenty yards of the
Speaker 2: end zone and we just running drills, and it's just
Speaker 2: like gaining an appreciation for just the work of what
Speaker 2: I'm doing, not necessarily where I'm going and how it
Speaker 2: looks or whether I'm in front of a lot of
Speaker 2: people or I'm in the spotlight, but just like, do
Speaker 2: I feel good about what I'm doing right here right now?
Speaker 2: In days stacked of that allowed me to not only
Speaker 2: return to the game, but return to the game with
Speaker 2: a purpose. I'm not just here to entertain you. I'm
Speaker 2: here to have a platform and to attract attention to
Speaker 2: me somebody that's been broken, somebody that's been hurting, somebody
Speaker 2: that's done the worldly success thing and achieved everything but
Speaker 2: felt meetingless on the inside. Like I need to get
Speaker 2: these words out of me. I need to get this
Speaker 2: story out of me, because somebody needs to hear this
Speaker 2: because we're believing lies. We're believing lies about ourselves and
Speaker 2: the narratives we tell ourselves and just overall what we
Speaker 2: think life should be and what a success is. And
Speaker 2: I think about it, if only I didn't have to
Speaker 2: go through it, But now I'm like, shame on me
Speaker 2: for thinking if I didn't have to go through it,
Speaker 2: because going through it has turned into the most beautiful
Speaker 2: perspective shifter for me. And I know Donnie feels the
Speaker 2: same way. If somebody's writing their story right now and
Speaker 2: you listen to this, like, it's not going to come
Speaker 2: free of pain, it's not going to come free of disappointment,
Speaker 2: it's not going to come free of heartbreak at times,
Speaker 2: but it's gonna get better. And it sounds cliche and
Speaker 2: it's hard to believe in the moment because I look
Speaker 2: at people like, man, whatever when they tell me that.
Speaker 2: But it became true for me, and it's still true
Speaker 2: for me to this day.
Speaker 4: Your test was a testimony. Man, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Did you suffer from embarrassment because I know, I know
Speaker 1: I struggle with embarrassment when I was going through it.
Speaker 1: Because even though whether things that I could have done
Speaker 1: differently or ways I could approach approach my situation differently, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, do I have some regrets about things that
Speaker 1: I wish would have gone differently, yes, but a lot
Speaker 1: of things were a lot of the way everything played out.
Speaker 1: And it's not that I'm pointing a finger. I'm saying
Speaker 1: it was things beyond my control. You know, understand, I'm
Speaker 1: saying like its just that had nothing to do with me,
Speaker 1: which is also part of egos, like realizing that it's
Speaker 1: not really about shot. But I when when I was
Speaker 1: kind of you know, for lack of better foras put
Speaker 1: in a corner, some would say made an example of
Speaker 1: which is a whole other conversation. I thought it was
Speaker 1: a referendum or an indictment on my ability or lack thereof. Well,
Speaker 1: I must not be the ship if they could just
Speaker 1: like kick me to the curve like this. You know,
Speaker 1: this must be because I'm not that good, because they
Speaker 1: wouldn't do that to X, Y or Z. And then
Speaker 1: going back to like I said earlier, like coming back
Speaker 1: or trailing or losing the court to whose scoreboard it's
Speaker 1: like the outside world definitely let me know that I
Speaker 1: took an l that I that I had fallen off,
Speaker 1: you know that you know.
Speaker 4: Was writing my story for me, and this was the end.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It took a while, and then one of the best
Speaker 1: things somebody said to me, my friend Jane McManus at
Speaker 1: the time, she was in charge of the communication.
Speaker 4: She's a you know, very successful sportswriter. At the time.
Speaker 1: She's at Seaton Hall now, I believe, but at the
Speaker 1: time she was at Maris College and she had me
Speaker 1: teach an interview in class for like half a semester.
Speaker 1: But I remember laying on literally laying on her couch
Speaker 1: and kind of just like pouring my heart out towards
Speaker 1: She said, your problem is you are looking at yourself
Speaker 1: through their eyes as they get through ESPN's eyes. And
Speaker 1: that convicted me and I realized that, you know, it
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with what I was or who
Speaker 1: I wasn't, what I could do or what I couldn't do.
Speaker 4: It was great. It was bigger than me.
Speaker 1: And once I got over like that feeling of shame,
Speaker 1: I was able to receive a lot of the flowers
Speaker 1: that people have for me, and, like you said, start
Speaker 1: to be that inspiration that people need from me to
Speaker 1: be and lean into that more again, you know, keeping
Speaker 1: with the scoreboard things like, you know, it's like the.
Speaker 4: Game ain't over.
Speaker 1: Maybe I am trailing, either in my own mind or
Speaker 1: from the world's perspective, you know, according to whatever scoreboard.
Speaker 1: You know, But I'm still in the game. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm still in the game. I'm still in the fighting.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's still time on the clock. I don't know how
Speaker 1: much time, but I'm getting up every day. There's still
Speaker 1: time on the clock for me to do something with.
Speaker 1: It's still plays to be made, you know. And so
Speaker 1: now the fulfillment comes from every every meeting, every email,
Speaker 1: you know. And and also man, like, I love how
Speaker 1: you talked about that process you felt. It's not like
Speaker 1: you fell in love with the process of just getting
Speaker 1: better every day.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the fame. It wasn't the lights, it wasn't
Speaker 1: the money, it wasn't the glory. It was just the
Speaker 1: love of the game, right, the adoration outside aderation. Like
Speaker 1: Donnie talked about earlier, that external validation wasn't doing it
Speaker 1: for you, That wasn't fueling you.
Speaker 4: You had to find your own fuel.
Speaker 1: Like and for me being on camera, being on television,
Speaker 1: like and I never got caught up.
Speaker 4: And people recognized me.
Speaker 1: I never got caught up with what people said because
Speaker 1: I always know it could work.
Speaker 4: It could work both ways.
Speaker 1: But for me now going back to that question of
Speaker 1: how it's fulfilling, now, it's like, man, every email, every meeting,
Speaker 1: every possibility of every project, every discussion, every relationship, all
Speaker 1: that stuff is like, I love it.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 1: I love the process of building something, of building something
Speaker 1: that I can call my own, of empowering other people
Speaker 1: to tell their stories, of amplifying marginalized voices, of giving
Speaker 1: people the same shot that I needed once upon a
Speaker 1: time to get where I wanted to go. Like, I'm
Speaker 1: in such a better place than I otherwise, what have
Speaker 1: I guess?
Speaker 4: And the story is still not over.
Speaker 1: The comeback quote unquote and put it in air quotes
Speaker 1: is still in process, in progress.
Speaker 4: I beg your pardoner, It's still a process. I'm still
Speaker 4: a work in progress.
Speaker 3: A bad day for the ego is a good day
Speaker 3: for the soul. And I think that process you're in
Speaker 3: now has kind of led you to inflection points. So
Speaker 3: can you tell us a little bit about where you're
Speaker 3: at now? And I'm kind of curious where you came
Speaker 3: up with that name.
Speaker 4: So this would have been twenty and seventeen.
Speaker 1: I was fortunate enough, blessed enough to be admitted to
Speaker 1: the twenty first class of the Aspen Institute's Henry Crown Fellowship.
Speaker 1: One of the I guess the missions of the Fellowship
Speaker 1: is to find professionals who are at inflection points in
Speaker 1: their lives and careers and find people who are using
Speaker 1: their resources and their relationships to help close the gap
Speaker 1: between the world's problems and solutions.
Speaker 4: You can tell I've said that a few times because
Speaker 4: I kind of got to memorize it.
Speaker 1: And so as you know, that phrase inflection point became
Speaker 1: really popular during the twenty twenty presidential election, but you
Speaker 1: know I had it first because I, you know, named
Speaker 1: my company inflection Point Entertainment. Not only was I inspired
Speaker 1: to name my company Inflection Point Entertainment based off of
Speaker 1: me being at a personal inflection point, which nobody puts
Speaker 1: a shelf life on that inflection point.
Speaker 4: You know, I was.
Speaker 1: I was on it, you know, personally and professionally, but
Speaker 1: professionally from like twenty eighteen to I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: still in it in many respects.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: You said You've said previously that the uncomfortable part is
Speaker 1: when the story gets good.
Speaker 4: That's another way of talking.
Speaker 1: About the inflection point, like that point of change, when
Speaker 1: things change or in some cases when shit hits the fan,
Speaker 1: is when the story really gets good.
Speaker 4: And so I'm drawing I like to start stories there.
Speaker 1: I'm drawn to stories of inflection points within individuals, within industries,
Speaker 1: within institutions, and so that was the inspiration for the
Speaker 1: name of the company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're an amazing storyteller, There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 3: With everything that you've experienced, just like us, has led
Speaker 3: us to this beautiful moment of connection and having meaningful
Speaker 3: conversations and then creating a platform that's allowing Darren and
Speaker 3: I not only to share our stories, but for other
Speaker 3: people to share their stories and you to share your
Speaker 3: story it's a beautiful moment that we're at. Can you
Speaker 3: talk a little bit about some of the projects other
Speaker 3: than ours that you've undertaken.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Inflection Point Entertainment.
Speaker 1: We are we like to call ourselves genre and platform agnostic,
Speaker 1: which is another way of saying we will tell cool stories,
Speaker 1: no matter the platform, no matter the subject matter. In
Speaker 1: addition to the Inflection Network, the Inflection Podcast Network, we
Speaker 1: have several feet your films in development. We have scripted
Speaker 1: series of development, documentaries and development and like, we just
Speaker 1: like to tell cool stories and like we stay amongst ourselves.
Speaker 4: We like to, you know, do dope shit with cool people.
Speaker 4: And you guys fit the bill, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And so and more than anything is like empower and
Speaker 1: amplify and elevate, enlighten and entertain. Those are some of
Speaker 1: our north stars when it comes to the content that
Speaker 1: we're developing in the stories that we're the stories that
Speaker 1: we tell.
Speaker 2: The man, I speak for so many people that are
Speaker 2: listening today when I say that we appreciate the way
Speaker 2: that you responded when she hit the fan and the
Speaker 2: way that you're continuing to respond and write your story.
Speaker 2: It's been it's just been incredible to have this conversation
Speaker 2: with you, Man, I would want to ask you, if
Speaker 2: there's somebody that's been listening, they may be overwhelmed with
Speaker 2: a lot of information and story and perspective today. If
Speaker 2: they could take away one thing today, what would you
Speaker 2: leave them with?
Speaker 1: Keep pushing, just keep pushing, and and I think it
Speaker 1: goes back to something that you said earlier and something
Speaker 1: that I believe in is you know, it's like you
Speaker 1: got to you gotta love the process. You gotta love
Speaker 1: the craft, like you can't love the result. If you
Speaker 1: if you love the results, those come and go. That
Speaker 1: gratification can be delayed. You know, if if you're in
Speaker 1: anything for recognition, if you're in it for the money,
Speaker 1: if you're in it for fame, if you're in it
Speaker 1: for glory, that could all be fleeting, come and go,
Speaker 1: and it could be taken away like that. But your
Speaker 1: love and your passion for what's your call to do,
Speaker 1: loving your passion for your purpose, that's up to you
Speaker 1: to maintain. And so I would say, you know, when
Speaker 1: it when it gets hard, like try to just rediscover
Speaker 1: and get reconnected with why you're doing what you're doing
Speaker 1: in the first place. Because that that's what makes it
Speaker 1: worth it. Like, you know, I just love telling stories,
Speaker 1: regardless of whether whatever platform I had and whether it
Speaker 1: was taken or how it was taken, whatever platform on
Speaker 1: or what'll be on. I's like nobody could, nobody could
Speaker 1: take away my ability and my passion and my love
Speaker 1: for storytelling.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, like just you know.
Speaker 1: Just don't lose your love and have faith, have faith
Speaker 1: in yourself, have faith in the Higher Power, have faith
Speaker 1: or at the universe that you prefer, or whatever God
Speaker 1: you serve. It's like, just understand it. There's a plan
Speaker 1: for your life. But that God has plans, you know,
Speaker 1: that has plans for you and plans to give you
Speaker 1: hope in the future and to prosper you and not
Speaker 1: to harm you, you know. And so that that's what
Speaker 1: I just leaned into.
Speaker 4: And it ain't easy. It definitely ain't easy. But I
Speaker 4: think you said this earlier, Darren, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's worth it in the end, and all that
Speaker 1: all that pain is preparing you, it's molding you for
Speaker 1: something else because I just move differently now, you know.
Speaker 1: I move with a different urgency, with a different purpose,
Speaker 1: with a different peace. And I didn't always have it,
Speaker 1: but I'm grateful for it now. I'm grateful for this
Speaker 1: entire journey and I'm excited. Another phrase I love is
Speaker 1: and that drew me to you, guys, feeling what you're
Speaker 1: doing is like it's knowledge. Somebody told me that knowledge
Speaker 1: is the only thing that you can get away and
Speaker 1: not lose it. And so I love anybody that's in
Speaker 1: the business of just passing all knowledge and passing on wisdom.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: And so when I first got to left ESPN and
Speaker 1: joined a startup and that lasted seven weeks, that's another podcast.
Speaker 1: One of the partners at the startup said, you don't
Speaker 1: work for anybody anymore. Decide what you want your days
Speaker 1: to look like. Decide what you want your weeks to
Speaker 1: look like, your months, your years. And that's always stuck
Speaker 1: with me. So even if you're drawing a paycheck from somebody,
Speaker 1: even if you're not an entrepreneur, you don't have your
Speaker 1: own company or whatever, even if you work at nine
Speaker 1: to five, still like I would, I would answer your question,
Speaker 1: Darren lean into that like you decide how you want
Speaker 1: your days to look and your and your and your
Speaker 1: weeks and your months and your years to look It's
Speaker 1: best you can under your circumstances. And again, even if
Speaker 1: you're punching the clock, even if you on somebody else's payroll,
Speaker 1: shift your perspective to I work with them, not for them,
Speaker 1: Like you're working for yourself. You're working for your answering
Speaker 1: to a higher a thought like don't just be miserable
Speaker 1: in a job, like always be walking in your purpose
Speaker 1: and use that job as a means doing it.
Speaker 4: And the doors of the church are open.
Speaker 2: As a fellow grandson of a preacher, I feel like
Speaker 2: anybody listened to this conversation today is going to leave
Speaker 2: with the wealth of knowledge and wisdom. Michael, thank you
Speaker 2: for your time and your testimony. My brother Donnie, I
Speaker 2: love you man. Thank you guys for joining us for
Speaker 2: another episode of come Back Stories. Make sure you reach
Speaker 2: out and tell somebody that we've come back and that
Speaker 2: we're gonna keep coming back. And you can check us
Speaker 2: out wherever you download podcasts, watch us, listen for us
Speaker 2: on the Inflection Point YouTube page, and we're gonna catch
Speaker 2: you guys next week.
Speaker 1: Comeback Stories is a production of Inflection Network and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple
Speaker 1: Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.