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Speaker 1: Welcome to the NFL Legends Podcast, an NFL podcast for

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Speaker 1: the players, by the players. Here is your host, four

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Speaker 1: team year NFL veteran and Hall of Famer Enius Williams.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the NFL Legends Podcast. I am

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Speaker 1: Ennius Williams. As a part of our Storyteller series, we

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Speaker 1: ask NFL legends to come in and talk about their

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Speaker 1: own journeys. Today we have an NFL legend and legendary entrepreneur,

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Speaker 1: Nate Laurie. Welcome. Nate. Let's start with the product you've developed.

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Speaker 1: What does it call and what does it do? So? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I invented the world's first phone flat collapsible film roller. Hello. Look,

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna put out there the world's first. You

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Speaker 1: didn't say the nation's first. You said the world first.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. Um, So, as you knows, as players,

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Speaker 1: we go through a lot during the season, a lot

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Speaker 1: of the bans and bruises, and it took a toll

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Speaker 1: on the body. I think most people that have played

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Speaker 1: the game in the last two decades have spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time on a phone roller. You know, when

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Speaker 1: I was in my third season, I was with the

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Speaker 1: Saints and had a bad back injury. Uh. In the

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Speaker 1: recovery process, I kind of learned. I was taught how

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Speaker 1: to use a phone roller properly. I'd use it before,

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Speaker 1: but I hadn't really like, even it's a proper way

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Speaker 1: to use the phone. There's there's many proper ways. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of science on it. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: was kind of taught how to actually foam role and

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Speaker 1: how it could like keep me on the field and

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Speaker 1: keep my focus on training take care of my body

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Speaker 1: on a daily basis, And so I adopted that, and

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Speaker 1: UM was mad when I would go travel, go to

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Speaker 1: the gym, go out to the track that I have

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Speaker 1: to lug around this big, bulky foam roller. I really

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Speaker 1: wanted one that I could just slip in my backpack.

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Speaker 1: And I kind of had this concept of, like, what

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Speaker 1: if I could make a formula that folds down flat

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Speaker 1: so I could put in my backpack so no matter

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Speaker 1: when I needed it, I could use it. After retiring

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Speaker 1: and being out for a couple of years, I started

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Speaker 1: tinkering with it and built the thing. Were you always

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Speaker 1: from a child where you would think of solutions like yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I grew up building model airplanes and model

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Speaker 1: rockets and taking things apart. And I always had that

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Speaker 1: kind of I guess an engineering mind, mechanical engineering mind.

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Speaker 1: Took some mechanical engineering classes in college and probably should

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Speaker 1: have done that as a major. I was a policy guy, yea,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I was able to kind of visualize what

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Speaker 1: it could look like and built like a rudimentary prototype

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Speaker 1: in the garage and it held my weight even though

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Speaker 1: you know it was just pieces from home depot. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was kind of when I knew it we had

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Speaker 1: a product that we could kind of develop from there.

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Speaker 1: When did you decide to take it to market? So we,

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Speaker 1: like I said, I built a prototype in the garage

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Speaker 1: and that was it for a while, just like maybe

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Speaker 1: once a month I would tinker on it. I would

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Speaker 1: try to improve it. And then um, after I retired,

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Speaker 1: I kind of took over a family business and that

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Speaker 1: that business took a lot of time at first, and

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Speaker 1: so I was able to kind of automate certain parts

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Speaker 1: of it. Um and when I was able to kind

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Speaker 1: of streamline that enough and give myself some extra free time, uh,

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Speaker 1: that's when I really took on the challenge of developing

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Speaker 1: something that I was much more passionate about, which was,

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Speaker 1: you know, developing tools to help athletes stay on the field.

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Speaker 1: Are people that were former athletes or you know, the

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Speaker 1: aging population take care of their bodies and in an easier,

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Speaker 1: more meaningful way. Took me a couple of years to

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Speaker 1: really like dig into it, and then more and more

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Speaker 1: kind of build momentum. We prototyped, and then we got

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Speaker 1: to the point where at the end of two thousand

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Speaker 1: fifteen we were ready to launch a Kickstarter and did it. Partners,

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Speaker 1: who did you share this? Yeah? So, uh the family

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Speaker 1: business I took over was a product actually that my

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Speaker 1: father in law invented. Um. It's so this invention, uh

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Speaker 1: stuff is in a family sound like yeah yeah, my

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Speaker 1: my uh, my wife's side. My father in law is

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Speaker 1: an amazing engineer. Basically, like after I was retiring, the

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Speaker 1: business that he started it was a great product. It's

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Speaker 1: a storm door closer. It's it's hardware. It's a storm

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Speaker 1: door hardware. Not what I grew up dreaming I would

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Speaker 1: do or it was super passionate about. But he had

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Speaker 1: this awesome product and the business was kind of struggling

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Speaker 1: at the time when I retired and needed somebody to

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Speaker 1: step in that could kind of take over and skip

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Speaker 1: a few paychecks, and I was in that position at

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Speaker 1: the time, and they basically through that process and learned

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Speaker 1: how to run direct to consumer business. So that was like,

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Speaker 1: that was kind of my trial by fire moment where

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Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, now I kind of figured it out.

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Speaker 1: I didn't get a lot of education in the topic,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, just kind of figured it all out. Did

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Speaker 1: you tell your father in law about your mention? I

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Speaker 1: did eventually, Yeah. Yeah, you say eventually, yeah, well, I

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Speaker 1: mean at first it was like I would tell my

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Speaker 1: friends about it, and you know, the guys I played

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Speaker 1: with in college and the guys that played with on teams,

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Speaker 1: and like, oh, that sounds like a pretty cool idea.

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Speaker 1: And everyone imagined it would be like this inflatable thing

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Speaker 1: where you'd have to pump it up, which would not

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Speaker 1: be very user friendly or compelling. So built a prototype

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Speaker 1: and then I started working with him to do some

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Speaker 1: of the development. My father, Yeah, yeah, how important was

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Speaker 1: it to have someone who had walked through super important? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean having somebody that had been through the whole

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Speaker 1: process of inventing a product, patenting the product, and I

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Speaker 1: went back to some of my mentors from from college

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Speaker 1: as well. I took a new product development class in

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Speaker 1: college that you know, at the time, I thought it

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Speaker 1: was just kind of a fun thing to do with

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Speaker 1: some of my teammates, and it turned it to be

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Speaker 1: something that I ended up doing for my life. But

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Speaker 1: I went back to the professor and got his opinion

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Speaker 1: and really sought out mentors in this world. And you know,

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Speaker 1: making stuff and selling it to people is a hard

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Speaker 1: thing to do, and I would I would like to

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Speaker 1: elaborate on it. You said, it is because legends listen

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Speaker 1: obviously to this podcast, but also current players, and we

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Speaker 1: make it public. So in a big scheme of things,

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Speaker 1: how important is it for legends to understand to find

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Speaker 1: those mentors? How critical was it for you? It's so

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Speaker 1: so important. I mean, if you're we're all you know.

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Speaker 1: I think if you you've played in the NFL, you've

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Speaker 1: made it that far. There's a certain amount of like

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Speaker 1: self reliance, right, you know that you have to put

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Speaker 1: yourself in the gym to make yourself the best athlete

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Speaker 1: to go, you know, spend extra time on the field

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Speaker 1: running sprints, you know when your college teammates are doing

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Speaker 1: it because you have this stream of plan in the NFL.

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Speaker 1: So there's that that certain of like I can do this.

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Speaker 1: I'm a man, I'm gonna do this myself, you know

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Speaker 1: what I mean. And and really that is effective to

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Speaker 1: a degree. But unless you have somebody showing you why

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Speaker 1: you have that coach that's like, hey, this is this

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Speaker 1: is really how this is done. This is how you're

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Speaker 1: gonna you know, accomplish your goals. If you have that,

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Speaker 1: it's it's basically like that. It's listening to a coach

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Speaker 1: that you really value. So being at Yale, when did

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Speaker 1: you decide I want to go play football? Because when

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Speaker 1: you used when you go to Yale? Right? Yeah? Who else?

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Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick wat going to Harvard? Harvard? Yeah, so I apologize,

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Speaker 1: Yeah right, I ended up playing with with Fitzy in Cincinnati. Um,

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Speaker 1: and he's got he's thrown me to my four NFL

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Speaker 1: research So that league type deal, Yeah, we had we

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Speaker 1: had kind of a little in a rivalry, but you know,

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Speaker 1: had an academic institution. It's known for obviously presidents things

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Speaker 1: like that. What help you keep the vision that you

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Speaker 1: would eventually play professional football? Yeah, I mean coming out

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Speaker 1: of of high school. Uh, you know, I guess going

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Speaker 1: to my my junior year, senior year, I thought I'd

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Speaker 1: be you know, at the top of everyone's you know,

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Speaker 1: recruit list or whatever. And got an offer really early

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Speaker 1: on from from Ball State. Uh, and I thought they

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Speaker 1: were going to stream it from there, and then they

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Speaker 1: just they didn't really The I release came knocking, and

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Speaker 1: I thought that that was an interesting premise that you know,

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Speaker 1: growing up in Indiana, there's not a lot of talk

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Speaker 1: or thought about IVY League. But you know, my my

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Speaker 1: focus was getting you know, recruited to play at Notre Dame,

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Speaker 1: and and Notre Dame didn't knock um, so, Uh, the

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Speaker 1: Yale opportunity was was very interesting. Yeah, going that route

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Speaker 1: was by far. You know, God God knew better than

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Speaker 1: I did. So I knew that if by the end

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Speaker 1: of my college you know years, I was good enough

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Speaker 1: to play in the NFL, they would find me because

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Speaker 1: there was, you know, there was precedent for for guys

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Speaker 1: coming out of the IVY and having great NFL careers.

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Speaker 1: I would think probably around my junior senior year, really

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Speaker 1: getting to be a big part of the offense at Yale,

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Speaker 1: having a lot of receptions, doing great in the run game,

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Speaker 1: I started to believe that, you know, it was a possibility,

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Speaker 1: and you know, recruits started are the scouts started coming

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Speaker 1: in and and and checking me out. So so what

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Speaker 1: was it like playing what's your teammates that Yale and

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Speaker 1: the majority of them not thinking about going to the NFL?

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Speaker 1: So what was that like? Right? Like, we we played this,

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Speaker 1: but we're getting ready go finance law school. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to see what guys are doing now. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean there's there's a strong football tradition at Yale. People

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Speaker 1: that come in know about that and they want to

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Speaker 1: be a part of it. So I didn't feel like

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Speaker 1: it was detracting at all, Like, yeah, I mean this

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Speaker 1: was my goal. Everyone, you know, the guys knew about that,

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Speaker 1: and U we'd all train hard together, we push each

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Speaker 1: other in the weight room. In the end, you're a

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Speaker 1: football player, you know what I mean, whether you're from

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Speaker 1: Yale or Ohio State, You're you're still you're you're pushing

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Speaker 1: yourself to be the best best you can on the

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Speaker 1: field and to help your teammates win. So I don't

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Speaker 1: know that it was a different environment necessarily than what

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Speaker 1: most guys go through. Back to the back to the product.

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Speaker 1: Who's currently using a product players NFL players. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we've got a good amount of NFL players using the roller. Actually,

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Speaker 1: we saw it pop up on one of the NFL

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Speaker 1: Films videos and j J. Watt was rolling on it

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Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, we just saw it and we're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's our product. You know, this was first It was

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Speaker 1: the Sounds of Summer I think that they end up doing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the segments hilarious because j J. Watt goes and he's

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Speaker 1: like riding the kids bike outs of practice and like

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Speaker 1: bust the seat and he's like, I guess it's not

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Speaker 1: Big Man improved. And in the next you know, about

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Speaker 1: a minute later into the film, he's on our roller

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Speaker 1: like it's a big Man approved j J. What are

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Speaker 1: you thinking when you you've seen j J was using

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Speaker 1: your product? It's it's cool to see high level athletes

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Speaker 1: using something I developed for that purpose, right, Um. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So we have a bunch of NBA teams on it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: somebody a friend send me a picture of scret like

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Speaker 1: they actually took a picture of their TV of Simone

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Speaker 1: Biles uh using using the roller. Yet the you know,

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Speaker 1: in between events at the U S Nationals or something

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Speaker 1: like that, So that's cool. I mean that's like such

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Speaker 1: a validation of creating something that I really wanted as

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Speaker 1: an athlete and seeing top athletes use it. But it's

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Speaker 1: also yeah, I mean it's a lot of businessmen people

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Speaker 1: that are traveling all the time that need to and

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Speaker 1: want to feel better when they're on the road. So, Nate,

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Speaker 1: where the biggest question? Where can we find your product?

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Speaker 1: So you can find us online? So you can find

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Speaker 1: us on Amazon or directly on our website. It's Brazen

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Speaker 1: Life dot com. So b r A z y n

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Speaker 1: l I f E dot com. What did you get

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Speaker 1: the name from? Yeah, brazen is kind of a concept,

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Speaker 1: uh that you So brazen means like bold and a bash.

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Speaker 1: It typically as a negative connotation, but we're kind of

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Speaker 1: taking it back to mean like, uh, people that want

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Speaker 1: to go out and accomplished the most that they can

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Speaker 1: and get the most out of get the most out

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Speaker 1: of life. Really, Um, we want to be there to

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Speaker 1: provide them the tools that they need to accomplish their goals.

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Speaker 1: Now you on Shark Tank, I was yeah, was it

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Speaker 1: as much pressure on Shark Tank as pointing in the

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Speaker 1: NFL game? It's it's terrifying in the game. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean people ask me that all the time. They're like, wait,

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Speaker 1: you had an issue with that, Like you used to

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Speaker 1: play in front of eighty thousand people and you know,

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Speaker 1: millions of people watching on TV. But it's completely different.

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Speaker 1: You take the helmet off and you're up there standing

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Speaker 1: and everyone's you know, you're trained for that. You're trained

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Speaker 1: to put your faith, your your hand in the dirt

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Speaker 1: and go try to you know, block a defensive end.

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Speaker 1: So so I would have thought you have just put

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Speaker 1: together a skit. You feeling sore after a game, and

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Speaker 1: then you start rolling in front of them. That's basically

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Speaker 1: how it went. Yeah, it was. It was a fun

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Speaker 1: little pitch. But yeah, we've all seen the show where

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Speaker 1: they actually they embarrassed, you know, somebody who comes up

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Speaker 1: and is not prepared. And I did not want that

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Speaker 1: to be me. So how much prep did you do?

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Speaker 1: Probably going on a ton of prep. You know, watched

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Speaker 1: the show, uh, you know, a million times and saw

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Speaker 1: what questions they were asking and and try to prepare

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Speaker 1: and try. It's like preparing for a game, right, It's

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Speaker 1: it's preparing for Sunday. You know that you what the

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Speaker 1: what the other team is going to try to do

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Speaker 1: UM and you try to prepare to to counteract that

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Speaker 1: and to win the games. Was business always a part

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Speaker 1: of your post career plan. No, I don't think so. UM.

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Speaker 1: I guess growing up, I thought I would probably go

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Speaker 1: to law school and I don't know, maybe politics some

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Speaker 1: day or something like that. But I think I actually

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Speaker 1: learned to be an entrepreneur through playing in the NFL.

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Speaker 1: Uh And, And I think it's said it one more time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think I think playing in the NFL kind of

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Speaker 1: like instilled what it meant to be an entrepreneur and

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Speaker 1: like what the upside of that was, right? What Why

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Speaker 1: do you say that from a player's perspect because I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know as well as I do like being in

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Speaker 1: the NFL. It's it's a lot about the team, but

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Speaker 1: it's also about your own personal product and what you

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Speaker 1: put out there. At the end of the day, you're

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Speaker 1: responsible for the product that you put on the field

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Speaker 1: and what you're you know, what you're going to show

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Speaker 1: up and do U in practice and in games, you

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Speaker 1: have to take a lot of those entrepreneurial steps, like

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this kind of training, I'm gonna get

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Speaker 1: this kind of treatment. This is this is how I

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Speaker 1: think I'm gonna be the best player I can be.

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Speaker 1: And you know, you have a lot of free time.

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Speaker 1: You're kind of your own boss in the offseason, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of those little elements are akin to being

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Speaker 1: an entrepreneur and being a business owner. On you just

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Speaker 1: stop planning for life half of football. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: I wish I would have like while I was in

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Speaker 1: the league done, I think a little bit more. I

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Speaker 1: try to take advantage a lot of the opportunities the

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Speaker 1: business programs that the you know that the NFL put on.

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Speaker 1: So you did a lot of them. I did, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I did what the Kellogge, the Stanford one um and

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Speaker 1: so I took advantage of those. But I think it's

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Speaker 1: it's interesting as a player when your focus is really,

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Speaker 1: you know, playing the game and you don't wanna you

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Speaker 1: don't want to give yourself an exit route necessarily because

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Speaker 1: that gives you, you know, I think it kind of

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Speaker 1: takes away from your mentality like this is what this

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Speaker 1: is my goal right that I'm all in on this.

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Speaker 1: So I've talked to my parents about doing wills. So

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Speaker 1: a lot of times people don't do wills because they

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Speaker 1: think if you do a willlerated that right. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: as a player, did you feel that way? Hey, if

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Speaker 1: I start thinking about I think I think that was

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Speaker 1: my mentality and I kind of think that was a

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Speaker 1: mistake even though I did do those programs. You know,

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Speaker 1: you have you have this time in the off season,

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Speaker 1: like you can train, you go into the facility, you

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Speaker 1: work out for three hours, you eat the meal, and

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Speaker 1: then you have the whole afternoon to kind of figure

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Speaker 1: out something else. What did you think was a mistake

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Speaker 1: you just said, Yeah, not not like being more active

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Speaker 1: in that time, right, like being like to like developing

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Speaker 1: the post career thing. Yeah, I mean all this has

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Speaker 1: kind of happened organically, and I think the guys have

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Speaker 1: the ability if they have the mindset of, like, you

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Speaker 1: know what I do, Like, I'm all in on football.

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Speaker 1: But because of the way the season structured in the

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Speaker 1: year is structured, you do have time to go and developed.

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Speaker 1: Because you can't lift twelve hours a day, right, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean, your body needs to recover and

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Speaker 1: in that time when you're recovering, eating healthy, find find

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Speaker 1: what might be the cool next thing to do? Right,

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Speaker 1: So what would nate until rookie Nate. Yeah, I would say, uh,

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Speaker 1: be a little bit more mature. Um, but no, I'm

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Speaker 1: probably honestly focus on recovery. The recovery part of it,

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Speaker 1: like I said, after my injury is really when I

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Speaker 1: figured out that, you know, recovery was just as important

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Speaker 1: as the training part. Um, So that would be a

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Speaker 1: big part of it. Um. And then yeah, just kind

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Speaker 1: of what we were just talking about, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: really focus on the next thing, becaus we know football

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Speaker 1: doesn't last forever. I never wanted to make football my

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Speaker 1: entire life. I wanted to be successful and like push

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Speaker 1: myself outside of that arena. And you know, I never

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Speaker 1: wanted it to be like the whole thing about me, right.

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Speaker 1: And I also, uh, you know, I was probably too

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Speaker 1: reliant back then on knowing that with the Yale education

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Speaker 1: I could go do whatever I wanted. Afterwards, I should

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Speaker 1: have I should have pushed it a little bit harder earlier.

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Speaker 1: I think. So, you played Harvard four times in school?

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Speaker 1: We did? Um, Little Bertie told me you you only

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Speaker 1: beat him once? Did Yeah? Yeah, thanks for really you know,

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Speaker 1: opening up old wounds there. Um. Yeah, we but we

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Speaker 1: beat him my freshman year and I didn't touch the field.

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Speaker 1: So that's that's a yeah, that's that's a hard thing

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Speaker 1: to look back on. I had some of my best

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Speaker 1: games against Harvard personally, but yeah, it's a it's a

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Speaker 1: good rivalry. It's you know, we call it the game.

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Speaker 1: Uh now, you know, then Ohio State in Michigan called

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Speaker 1: there's the big Games and you had to try to

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Speaker 1: take our thunder a little bit there. But the big

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Speaker 1: game Ohio State Michigan. Yeah, and then Harvard and Yield

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Speaker 1: is the game. Yeah, it's one of the oldest rivalries.

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Speaker 1: So in this podcast, we talked a lot about transitioning.

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Speaker 1: What was it like transitioning from IVY League schools to

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Speaker 1: the NFL. It was a big jump. Honestly. It was

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Speaker 1: interesting because you know, our offense in college was pretty simple.

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Speaker 1: It was pretty straightforward. My high school offense was pretty simple,

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Speaker 1: and then I, you know, go to the NFL and

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'm in Jon Gruden's offense, which

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Speaker 1: is like, so I liken it to like going from like,

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Speaker 1: you know, high school right into a PhD program or

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Speaker 1: something like that, because it's just the offense is is

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Speaker 1: so much more complicated and there's so many more things

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Speaker 1: that you have to know and expect going to the line.

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Speaker 1: That actually the mental part of it was a big

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Speaker 1: jump for me, just you know, what I had to

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Speaker 1: process going up to the line was was way different

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Speaker 1: than I had to uh any time before. So final question,

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Speaker 1: what is your relationship like now with the league, club

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Speaker 1: and formal players. Yeah, I mean I have a couple

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Speaker 1: of buddies that I played with on teams that I

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Speaker 1: try to stay up with regularly, you know, try to

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Speaker 1: make it back to the the kind of alumni weekends

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Speaker 1: as often as I can. Being in Santa Barbara, we're

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Speaker 1: not too close to the team, but um, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean I I certainly watched the game a lot. Try

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Speaker 1: to try to stay in touch with as many people

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Speaker 1: as I can. Um, And yeah, I really try to

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Speaker 1: take advantage of of uh you know, the opportunities in

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Speaker 1: the Legends community and that kind of thing. So I

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Speaker 1: love all the programs that have been coming out and

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Speaker 1: hopefully hopefully guys are taking advantage of them. Well, Nate,

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Speaker 1: this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for taking

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Speaker 1: the time NFL Legends podcast, and thank all of you guys,

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Speaker 1: thanks for listening, and the best is yet to come.

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Speaker 1: Thank your knees appreciate MH. This has been the NFL

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Speaker 1: Legends podcast. To provide feedback or request a topic for discussion,

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Speaker 1: email us at NFL Legends at NFL dot com. Yeah,