Find Your Purpose w/ Sam Acho

28:04Never mind, because in the book you do say, you actually said the word American Dream with your mom and dad, but then in the book, this shows how we should have lives that can exceed even our parents if we live correctly. You actually say the American Dream may not be enough, that there's more than just like, hey, roof over your head, at least in this country, that just the notion of a roof over your head and watch Netflix and chill and have a barbecue on the weekend, that there's more to life than that? It doesn't satisfy. More than anything, that dream doesn't satisfy. We were made for more.

28:37And Ed, you get that. And I think a lot of people listening, they understand we were made for more. We were taught to believe that, okay, if I just make enough money, I get this house. And if I get married, then if I have kids, then if I, you know, I'm the perfect husband or perfect wife, then I will. It's like, no, dude, there's something beneath the surface. And and if we keep on chasing that thing, it will never. I played in the NFL for nine years. Average is three. I've made a lot of money, been around people that made a lot more than me. And there's it doesn't satisfy. It doesn't. But there is something that does.

29:13I think about that idea of people talk about like seeking justice, loving mercy, walking humbly. And you can talk about like self-help, find out who you are. But you answering those people's prayers without even knowing it, it gives you a kind of purpose. I love how thoughtful you are, by the way. I'm just watching you. Like every word you say matters to you. You're so deeply trying to serve when you communicate. I just want to acknowledge that about you. I think that's a beautiful thing. I'm watching you really want to give your best in everything you do, and that's rare. So I just want you to know visually I'm watching this man dig as deep as he can.

29:52The Holy Spirit's all over him, and just choose the right words. So anyway, I just want to make sure I acknowledge that. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, it's true. Words matter, man. Like words can build up people. Words can destroy people. You choose yours beautifully. I just want you to know that. But you were talking a little bit about, I want to make sure that I didn't take that thought from you for a second too but also this notion of you know when you're in service and also the notion I think we're also going to talk about a little bit there I was going to let you go down the road a little bit of you know that there is something more yeah yeah just I'm like my highlights and as you're saying it now like new thoughts are coming up my my happiest let me not say happiest but my the moments that brought me the most joy throughout my life and career I think about times in Nigeria serving.

30:42Really? Yes. I'm talking about like, there's no light, no running water. You know, the time we go and visit like the hospital, those times. I think about times being injured in the NFL. Really? Yes. What did I do? I mean, because it's like, oh, I got to go make the team and be the star. And I made the team. I was a star. I signed the contract. But my highlight of my NFL career was 2018 where week four, I tore my pick. I was out for the season. I was supposed to be the starter. We traded for Khalil Max. So we ended up getting the spot, which was awesome. He's a beast and still a friend. But I get benched.

31:14I tear my pec. I'm out for the season. And I made a decision. And you talked about gratitude, but I decided to be who God really made me to be, which was to serve. When I say I just sat with my teammates, I became a friend. It's hard. You talk about being lonely. People got millions of dollars and zero friends. A lot of cars and no people to be with you in them. And I just became a friend to my teammates. God bless you. And something unexpected happened in that that year, I think we had eight different guys go to the Pro Bowl. Our team went to the playoffs, best record in a decade. And you would say, well, Sam, you weren't a part of it.

31:57I was every bit a part of that. Behind the scenes. That's awesome. Loving people well. You're not supposed to travel with an injury. I asked my coach. One of my teammates was like, hey, man, can you pray with them before games? and I knew he wanted me there so it was an away game I reached out to the coach is it cool if I travel he's like yeah sure come on he thought it was a good study tape no I wanted to go be there with my teammates the night before the game we do defense dinners and hang out with the guys we do this bible study on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays 15 minutes before practice I'd get up early, I'd do the study early I'd go to my rehab because that's what the guys needed that was a highlight and I've been to the playoffs a couple times I was like second on the rookie sack record for Arizona Cardinals in my rookie year.

32:41But that wasn't happiness. That wasn't the highlight. That wasn't. It was that year when I was, sure, I was physically injured, but spiritually I was alive. See, that's what I meant earlier. By the way, that is one of my favorite things I've ever had an athlete tell me in my darn life. And what that goes back to is your commitment to your teammates wasn't conditional. Wasn't conditional that I'm starting. Wasn't conditional that I make the Pro Bowl. Wasn't even conditional that I'm suited up. It was non-conditional love and support. Unconditional. And that's the real leaders. I want to go to some hard questions for you about pursuing change overall.

33:15Because like you said, the genesis of the book started really in 2020 with George Floyd. I'm sure this was ringing in your head prior to that, I'm sure. But then that was a catalyst. And then just the catalyst of overcoming adversity in all of our lives. You tie them both together, by the way, beautifully in the book. But I wonder what your advice would be regarding discouragement. So you and I are both Christians, and it's not talked a lot about in the book, but I wanted to ask you about this because I really believe the adversary is a great weapon. See, if I want to get you, if I'm the adversary and I want to get you to quit on your dreams, I'm going to use one weapon against you, which is discouragement.

33:49I'm going to get you to believe you can't do it. I'm going to get you to believe things can't change. I'm going to get you to believe it's too big. It's too insurmountable. You don't know enough. You're not well enough connected. You don't have the resources. You're not smart enough. It's anything I can do to discourage, right? And I wonder even from a societal standpoint, you know, we see these things still repeatedly happen. It's discouraging, right? We see things in our own lives where if we're in pursuit of changing something for our family, we want to be the change agent, generational change in our family.

34:18And we have failure or setback or discouragement is the killer of change. It's the killer of dreams, right? How have you in your own life dealt with discouragement, both from a societal standpoint and just a personal standpoint in your own life? At one point, your career had to end too, right? So what about discouragement? What are the weapons you use, if there's weapons you use, to fight against it? Good friends. Okay. I get discouraged a lot by sometimes my own thoughts or other people's thoughts actions or maybe a misinterpretation of someone's thoughts actions etc and there's a few things number one sometimes it's good friends not always because sometimes like where are you guys but memories sometimes help so here's what I mean the times where I'm the most at my my deepest discouragement i think i'm thinking about a distinct time i remember i was at my parents house a couple years ago i don't know what was going on maybe months ago a couple i don't know what was going on but i was just sitting on like the steps of their house i was just sad and something told me to go to my phone and just start going back through some of the old pictures i don't know what it is about going back to those memories or those markers and i've done it a few times now it hadn't been this planned thing okay i'm so discouragement to go to my phone but it's like just some of those pictures like man life is not as bad as i thought you're right and there have been some highlights and god is still good and there are things to be happy about even though i might be sad now like man like there were happy times and oh by the way those times will come again this too shall pass yes but but we don't have memory markers to remember that and you talk about being a christian like god would remind his people like the Israelites like hey guys like I want you to remember this moment put this marker down I want you to go and like remember write it down there's a verse uh that they would like sing it in songs in psalm like 115 and 116 like when they came out of captivity they would talk about these things right not to us oh lord not to us but to your name give glory because of your loving kindness because of your truth why should the nation say where now is their god but our god is in the heavens he does whatever he pleases so good their idols are silver and gold the works of man's hands they have mouths but they cannot speak they have eyes but they cannot see they have ears they cannot hear they have noses but they cannot smell they have hands but they cannot feel they have feet but they cannot walk they cannot make a sound from their mouths so like that that was like a song that they sang a song that they said to themselves to remember like no we're giving God the glory and so the times when I get discouraged Ed it's a I'm not it's a simple thing it's like a kind of just like oh minutiae I'll go back to my phone and I'll go all the way through my pictures all the way to the top and one of the first pictures is a picture of me playing football at like seventh grade and I was playing tight end and another another one is when my wife and I first met before we not first met but first started getting like close and just us hanging out and laughing another one is when I proposed to her like there's these things things and i'll scroll down a couple and i'll see like a picture of my daughter when she was like 18 months old and she's in my car and like as a two years old putting on like fake makeup you know it's like so in those moments of discouragement there's always a way out and the bible talks about like hey when you're tempted god's always going to give you a way out and that's true but i also believe that god gives us a way out during discouragement as well i think he gives us a spirit to remind us of these things and sometimes he gives us a phone to remind us of because the scourgement is real.

37:59Brother, it's unbelievable how much we kind of think alike. You ever, and don't do it, by the way, if you're listening to this, but every once in a while, I'll get something on my feed where it shows, like, fighting. Like, a student fight at a school. And if you flip the screen, it'll give you the next fight. I think everyone probably knows what I'm talking about. The next fight, you watch some human being beating up, and it's terrible to acknowledge, but I'll watch it, and go, my God, and then I'll watch the next one, and I'll watch the next one. I'm like, the cruelty of man against another man, and it discourages me.

38:29Those are the things that harm my spirit the most. In my life, it's never been like failure. It's like, I'll figure a way to win. God's on the throne. I'm going to win. It's man's inhumanity to man breaks my spirit, hurts my spirit. And I allowed myself, I'm being vulnerable here. I allowed myself to watch like 11 of these videos in a row. I know all of you know what I'm talking about. out there all over social media. I'm like, oh my gosh, and this guy beat up his teacher. And this guy, three of these guys kicking this boy in the head and he's passing. And I just cannot imagine a human being doing this to another human being.

39:05And then I started going, yeah, people suck. You know, people are mean. Maybe I've misjudged humans. And I did exactly what you did. I actually flipped all the way back to my phone and I watched all these little pictures of my daughter when she was just a baby. And my daughter on my lap and my daughter hugging me. And then it made me thinking, man, daddies love their daughters. And then I literally used social for a good thing. I watched videos of fathers with daughters, like inspiring videos, which flipped to other things with like just kind people helping kind people. And I'm like, okay, there's a balance here.

39:40There is good in the world, right? And my job by one millimeter of 1 % is to move the needle the good way. That's what my calling is in my life. But this notion, what we do everybody to ourselves is when our dream's failing or life is bad, we begin to believe there isn't a way out. There is no way. Everything is against us. It's never going to change. Those are all lies of discouragement. There is a way out. God does provide a way out. It won't last forever. All pain is temporary, right? There is salvation. So just remember, you start stacking these lies like I was stacking these videos. And it becomes a pattern.

40:17and you do one in your mind after another in your mind after another in your mind and it's not reality and I just want you all to hear that he's smiling as big as he's ever smiled so I know I'm onto something there but I just want to acknowledge that yeah and these thoughts and I want you to jump in these thoughts are contagious these negative thoughts you say in the book so are dreams there's a chapter about that so add what you wanted to add and then talk about the contagiousness of dreams well I love what you I love everything you just said thank you for a few reasons. You're talking about going back and watching the tape.

40:50There was a point in my career, probably year four, so year three, I'm starting, I'm the guy and all the things. Year one and year two, I'm starting. Well, year three, I break my leg. Out for the season. Have a new coaching staff. Half the team gets cut. I make the team, but then the injury and then year four, I'm still trying to recover. I wasn't playing bad. I wasn't playing great either. I started getting better and better and better, but it was still trying to still be more. But all of a sudden, I heard coaches and teammates, even media a little bit, like, man, this guy's bad. You're not this.

41:20You can't. And I started to believe it. And there's a little bit, you said the criticism versus haters. I said, okay, let me see where I can get better. I'm still working on getting better, but I'm still either not hearing anything or hearing just negative. I'm like, what is going on? But then I went back and watched the tape. Good. I went back and I watched the tape. Objectively, went back and just watch. And I said, oh, wow, I'm actually pretty good. Good, yeah. Take out the opinions, whatever. It's like, no, this is actually, just judging by the technique, go back and watch the tape. You go to the picture with your daughter.

41:55Oh, wow, like I have been present. I know I travel a bit, but I have been present. Oh, wow, like I have been a good husband. It's like, oh, wow, like there is good in the world. So we believe the lies, but I would actually go back and watch the tape. Gosh, that's good right there. I'm telling you, because it changed everything for me. Yeah, that's good. I legit was sitting there like, man, I'm just horrible player. And I went back and watched. So you know what? They actually may have been wrong. And what if I'm right? And I think the spirit of God helps remind us of that truth. You are a bazillion percent right on about that.

42:29And I just really believe that what we think about expands and they become things and they become patterns. And the more something is repeated over and over again, you use the word in the book. You actually use the word contagious. Yeah. I want to combine two thoughts in the book because I just believe you're brilliant. I just believe you're brilliant. I also believe there's wisdom scripturally and in my own life to validate what you speak about. But you talk about two things in the book, because I'm not going to cover every chapter. Dreams are contagious. And also simultaneously, your dream is not just for you.

43:01This is huge, everybody, right here. And I'll add my little two cents to it after Sam discusses it. But what about it? What's contagious mean? And why is your dream not just for you? Dreams are like oxygen or or maybe like they're like trees, you know, like the trees that produce it. It's like when you start breathing it in, you don't realize you need it, but other people need it. Like those trees. Oh, yeah. You know, reforestation. Now, do we need those? If you cut those out, you're dead. You're dead. So those that oxygen like you breathe it out. And then all of a sudden you start living out your dream, start planting more trees.

43:38All of a sudden people are breathing more. They're dreaming again. And you start doing something and someone joins us alongside with you. I remember even we talked about some of the stuff in 2020 and trying to figure out with like, what do we do as athletes or people or whatever. And all of a sudden I started to follow through with this idea or this dream. Then all of a sudden someone else wanted to do something similar, they joined. And someone else said, maybe I can try that. And all of a sudden we built this thing that started with one tree that was planted and it was providing oxygen. And we think it's just a tree, but it's really a life-giving gift.

44:12You doing this podcast, you showing up, it's a life-giving gift. And we think, oh, I don't have a platform. No, you do. You do. You do. And so there's a contagiousness. There is. In you living out your dreams, you following your dreams, you following your fire, getting the architects. There's that. But the second piece is your dreams aren't just for you because other people are on the other side of your dreams. And we think it's this great idea, but there are physical people, real people waiting for you. Maybe the result of whatever you do is going to help them. but more likely there's people to the left and to the right that are like man i always wanted to do that and 15 years from now you're going to look up and be like it was that one conversation that had you go on this trajectory that changed my life 100 and then you'll remember you won't see it because like when you plant all these trees start building them it becomes this huge forest but you will remember i had a convo with that guy and that person will tell you you changed everything yeah and and yeah and it's necessary I want to step out of the book and into you for a minute.

45:24I watched you most every day you were on during the George Floyd stuff and surrounding that. And there was something different about the way that you communicate. I just want to say something about you on that. It seemed to me, see, I believe that one of the keys of making your dream come true, whatever that dream is or whatever change you want to create, is your ability to enroll people in that dream. So when you say there's other people involved in your dream, you know, the way you really make your dreams come true, everybody, is that you connect it to the love of either other people or the change you could create because that love will be bigger than the adversity.

46:00And not enough people get emotionally connected to their love, the love of their children they want to win for or their parents or their culture or their society or their country or whatever it might be. But if you can connect the dream to something bigger than the adversity emotionally, now you've got a real shot. one of the ways to do that is you enroll people you change hearts you change minds you get people to support you and during the uh look when the stuff happened with george floyd george floyd is just one person this has happened things like this have happened lots of times there's a camera on george floyd and so we call it the george floyd time of 2020 but the truth is you know this is something that's happened forever.

46:43And when it happened, there was a point, I don't care who you were. I don't care black or white. You're like, this is on here every single day. There was just a lot of it, right? You're like, at anything, there's actually some benefit to a little bit of a look away and then come back that gives you perspective that every message, every day, all the time. And I remember thinking, I kind of know what I'm going to hear when I turn the TV on. Even when I turn on ESPN, I kind of know what this is, what I'm going to hear, except when you talked, and there was a few others too, when you talked, I felt like just like what you're doing today, you were judicious in your wording.

47:19And it seemed to me like that you didn't only just want to express a frustration. This is important. You didn't just want to express a frustration or a concern or a pain, but you actually wanted to communicate something that would get people to see your perspective. People who already may not have seen your perspective. I'm wondering if you were cognizant of that when you were on the air that I want the dude watching this who doesn't get this to hear my perspective as opposed to just hear my frustration. And let me tell you why I think this is relevant. When you have a dream, it's easy to go, I'm frustrated with this thing and I want to change it.

47:54I'm frustrated with, you know, obesity. And so I'm starting a fitness training company. Well, that's great. But at the same time, you have to change the hearts and minds of somebody to make them your client, to make them your customer. It's great. You're pissed, right? That's great. I'm glad to know the reason you're doing this, but to really create a movement as an entrepreneur or to create a movement and cultural change, you have to enroll people in your vision. And that means you have to meet them somewhere and connect with them. So I wonder when you were on there, because I found myself watching you almost leaning in a little bit, like he has a perspective I don't have because I didn't grow up like him.

48:29But I didn't feel like, do you know what I mean when I say that? I think I'm saying it the right way. So I think that same application at that time applies to any dream or any change you want to create. Your frustration level should affect me emotionally because it moves me. But then what are you doing to enroll me to get me to see your perspective and come with you? Does that make sense? Or even to, it makes sense, but even to have a runway for me to do something. Because I might be mad, but are you mad? And if you're not mad, then you don't want to do anything? All right, great i'll do it myself or it's like hey if you could understand where i'm coming from that's part a yeah it's like okay i get it but then part b is hey what if we could do something about it what if we could do something together what's the vision look what's the vision and i had a friend who said man like because there's the fear and he talked about overwhelm that fear with vision and so there can be fear in situations and change but it's like what if there's something we could do together.

49:29So oftentimes what I'll try to do is say, whatever my fear, frustration, I may not have an answer, but if I do, it's like, hey, and here's something we're doing. We're going to do this. And for me, for a bunch of athletes, it was, hey, do we protest? And we've seen protesting work. Do we post some stuff on social media? And one of the nonprofit leaders is like, hey, can you just come and listen to some of our kids? Come sit with them? Come spend time with them because they're hurting? And so we did. And then there was an action point too. That was action. But also I always wanted to go from listening to like actioning, listening to moving.

50:00So we went and checked out the neighborhood, saw what was going on. We saw, yes, you know, you turn on the TV, you see looting, rioting, Chicago. I just finished my time with the Chicago Bears. Looting, rioting. But we said, is this stuff real? You know what? We took a tour. And we saw buildings boarded up. We saw glass on the ground. We also saw a community that in a lot of ways it seemed like society had turned its back on. But it came from getting close. And then with that, it said, okay, what if there's something else we can do? So we got some athletes together. Hey, let's sit and let's meet again with these kids and see.

50:32So it's just this idea of we all want solutions, but many people, they stop at the frustration. Yes. And they don't provide that solution. Yes. If I could just provide you with a solution, then it's your decision. Do you want to take those easy steps? And sometimes it's easier for some, more easier than some others, but do I take those easy steps? Or do I just say no? Because it's easy if I'm just frustrated. Okay, cool. That's you. But hey, let's do something. Now you can say yes or no. Yeah, very good. You talk about pain in the book. And you actually call pain a primer. I think, I'll just use it from a business perspective.

51:09I think it's oftentimes healthy to tap into someone's pain and then show them how you can alleviate it. And sometimes you need to even point out to somebody that they're in pain. There's a lot of people in our culture today that suffer in comfort. I'm going to talk about this on one of my shows. They suffer in comfort. So they live their life suffering and they just try to add things to make that suffering more comfortable. So if I'm going to get a nice car, so now I suffer in a little bit more comfort. Or I've got a decent house. But you're still suffering as a human being because I believe humans suffer if they're not in pursuit of their potential.

51:47They're not in pursuit of their purpose. They're not in pursuit of the reason they were born to do something great. There's a suffering that comes with that. That's the ultimate suffering. Now, there's all kinds of other suffering in life that's the obvious sufferings in life. But what most people try to do in their life is they don't try to alleviate their suffering. They try to just suffer in more comfort. And so what it means is sort of avoid the pain almost. But you say, nah, pain's kind of a primer in life. It's okay to leverage that to some extent. So I'll let you talk about that. Yeah, it's a primer.

52:21Pain precedes progress. Oh. And we know that from working out and lifting weights. We know that from, I mean, go to talk about different founders. You listen to them and oftentimes we fail, fail, fail, fail, then boom. Or the reason I created this great company is it was a huge pain. Pain precedes progress. And we want to avoid it. We want to just add all this comfort to our pain and really we're dying on the inside. And so if we want to accomplish anything worthwhile in life, we have to address those things. We cannot just continue just to run or hide or just get more comfortable because that comfort still won't speak to the heart of what's not only irking you on the inside, but eating you away and burning you up on the inside.

53:15so sooner or later we have to like get comfortable with with pain wow that's good if we don't you'll i forget how you said it but it was it was really amazing like but we'll die a slow death we do it's like an asphyxiation yeah it's slowly we don't even realize it's happening to us and little by little it's almost like that frog it's almost like in the boiling bucket like it's just one degree at a time and before you know it you're boiling and that's what happens in people's lives And then you get to the end of your life and you played scared and you don't get another one. I, you know, I was with my dad when he died and, and, and I can tell you, my dad did not regret the things that he tried and failed in his life.

53:57He didn't. The things that he tried that didn't work out, I didn't regret them. My dad regretted the things that he didn't try. My dad regretted the risks he didn't take. I have a really good friend named Dave Hollis who recently passed away. He's 47 years old. and you don't know when your time's coming, but so many people in their life, they just live afraid. They don't take risks and they're going to get to the end of their life and they're going to be loaded with regret that they didn't. And in the book, you talk about taking risks. It's actually a center. It's one of the things that you actually write about and that most people do stay in that really comfy place in their life.

54:35They don't vary outside of what their parents expected of them or what their friends think they're capable of or what they might not be great at yet. They don't want to roll the dice because they're rather just suffering in comfort. Can I do something? Yes. How did you forgive your dad? That's a great question. You mean for the drinking and the things in his life? Well, two things in my dad's case. No one's ever asked me that ever in my life. not even my family.

55:09One, my dad did have a redemptive part of his story that he did turn his life around. And so I watched him physically with his feet change. So it wasn't just his words, it was his feet. I watched him do his prayer every day. I watched him go to the meetings. I watched him put in the time and the effort. So there was that. The other part of it is that in my own life, I've come to this conclusion that I need to give people more grace, that I don't know what was done to my dad when he was young. I don't know my dad's experiences. I don't know the pain and the hurt and the perspective that my father suffered through either.

55:45And so what I was doing in my life, like most people, is I'm judging the pain that my dad caused me based on only my perspective. But I don't know what my dad saw when he was a child. I don't know what suffering or abuse my dad went through as a little boy. But I have to believe for someone to get that addicted to drugs and alcohol. He was trying to suppress some sort of pain in his own life as well. And so for me, it was the forgiveness came from grace, not from him being perfect, but that in my dad's life, he's a man who was suffering, who loved his family and did everything he could to change.

56:15But even had my dad not gotten sober, because a lot of people ask me that they're like, Hey, you know, what if your dad always stayed that way? The truth of the matter is, is that real love isn't conditional. It's not conditional on my dad's sobriety. It doesn't mean that I would need to have my dad around me all the time if he was drinking. I wouldn't have him around my children. I had my dad been drinking and using drugs, but my love for my dad was not conditional. Real love isn't conditional on his behavior. Proximity is conditional, but not the love. And so that forgiveness came rather easily for me because I'm a sinner saved by the grace of God as well.

56:48And if every mistake I've ever made, people judged me by, well, that'd be wrong because they don't know what I've gone through to get there. And so that's how I forgave my dad. I hope that's a complete answer but it's it's the real answer no one's ever asked me that why'd you ask me that i'm curious i've seen not only in my life but even like lives of people like i want to be a better dad you know and like you know my dad you know from nigeria fought in wars and like you know tough dude tough dude tough dude you know and i feel like i'm different and i'm very like hey let's have fun and you know and um but i do know there are things where i'm like man like how can I love like I want to love people well me too and so like as I'm sitting and listening I just want to learn like okay what did what did you do you know one thing I did pretty well I'll give you something I'm 51 by the way man can I give you a bigger list of things I wish I didn't do as a dad isn't it man I don't want that list yeah well you know I mean like wish I was more present I remember a time where these little things as a parent you remember where I yelled at my daughter.

57:52My dad was a yeller and I vowed I would never yell. And I yelled at her and I watched her face, you know, my little face shook. I scared my daughter and it broke my heart. And I'm like, I can't get that back. I just, my job is to protect her. My job is that she feels the most safe with me. And I scared her because I was an emotional idiot in three seconds. Now I gave myself some grace and I said, I'm never going to do that again. And I don't think I ever have since then, but I've made those mistakes. One thing I have done pretty well, brother, and I know you do a good job of this. I spoke real words of affirmation into my children.

58:31In other words, I didn't just love them. I believed in them. I believe there's a big difference between love and belief. And I think love is the most powerful thing in the world, but true deep belief in somebody, you are very rare. If I said to you right now in your own life, who are the, who's the one or two people in your entire life that truly believed in you the most. Anybody listening to this or even Sam Acho sitting across from me, who are they? Picture their beautiful face right now. That one that really, man, if you think too long about it, you get emotional. And there is only one or two or maybe three people at best in most of our lives that had the deep belief in us.

59:07They're the most important people in our lives. And I want to be those people in my children's life. I want to be the person they go, my daddy believes in me. A lot of dads love their kids and I want them to feel immense love, but I believe in you. And I tell them over and over why I believe in them. And it's not just, I believe in you. You're great. I then link it to things about them that they intuitively know is probably true. So Bella boo, you're amazing. You know why you're so amazing? Cause you love people so much. You care so much about people. You're so funny. You're so good at math. You're so fast.

59:41I'll link it to things she's great at. I am. I do care about people. And it's linked to something she knows is true. Right. Maximus, your kind heart, your giving. My son was born loving God. One of those just, you know, those people like didn't have to teach it to him at all. Right. Max, the way you love God. Like, yeah, I do. So I want to build him from there because like I said with my dad, I think hurt people hurt people. And I think loved people love people. People who are believed in believe in people. And what Jesus did was two things, if we really are true. He loved us. He died unconditionally for our sins.

1:00:20He went through pain for our goodwill because he loved us more than the pain he would suffer to the point earlier. But he also believed in us. He believed in us in spite of the mistakes and sins he already knew we were going to make. And that, with my children, is the profound thing. That the mistakes they're going to make doesn't change my belief, it's not conditional, because the Lord's belief, who loves me more than I even love my own children, which is hard to imagine for both you and I. And he knows all the mistakes I make. He knew them before I made them. He knows the ones I'm about to make I haven't made yet.

1:00:55And so that means you deeply believe in me also. So I think that's probably it. Hmm. Whoa. that's deep as a dad you know because it's one thing to love your kids and to say you love your kids another thing to believe in them especially when you see your faults and your failures in them isn't that true and still to believe in them like you said you talked about how God believed in us how Jesus believed in us and believes still that's a powerful thing and knows our mistakes knows our sins, knows the ones we haven't made yet. Most times, I think most people, their belief is pretty damn conditional.

1:01:39You behave, I believe in you. You behave, I love you. You misbehave, I don't believe in you. I don't love you. This whole notion of I'm really disappointed in you, that's the kind thing, I don't think that's a good thing to say to a child because the truth of the matter is I've made mistakes in my life as well. My belief in you, that doesn't mean I don't correct my children. Jesus rebuked the apostles. We're having a real faith discussion now, but that's okay. Jesus rebuked the apostles, so rebuke is right within our repertoire. But that rebuke came with love and belief. Most times as parents, as leaders in business, when we're in the process of correcting, criticizing, or rebuking, we remove love and belief in that moment, and we'll get back to giving it to them.

1:02:20But what if in the presence of love and belief you can correct? To me, that's most productive as a parent rather than the absence of it in the moment of correction. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes. Most of my corrections with my children, even in business, have been in moments of anger, if I'm being honest. I'm angry. I'm mad. And I correct and I believe. Anger and love can't coexist. So I try to not do those things in the moments of anger and do them in moments of love. That's easier said than done because I'm a sinner too and make mistakes. But overall, that's my belief as a father, as a friend, and as a businessman, is that I want that correction to come in love and in belief, not in the moments of absence of it, if that makes sense.

1:03:02You're really kind. Thank you, brother. No, seriously, you are really kind. I probably sound more kind than I am, but thank you. I appreciate that. I just, I mean, even just like not even listening, but like looking at you, you know, and like there's a kindness inside of you and there's like a, there is this like emotional intelligence. Thank you. But more than that, it's a strength. And there's this deep, deep, deep kindness. I see that in you. Thank you. That's probably why I have such affection for you. I see that as well. By the way, thank you. You could not say something nicer to me. And I accept that, even though I'm not completely comfortable with it.

1:03:43But I accept that. And I aspire to be. I aspire to be more kind, a more gentle, generous. I think the strongest people, men and women, are so strong they can be kind and gentle. You and I were talking about that about our mutual friend Jason Wilson. It's one of the things I admire most about him. In your case, I love multidimensional humans with depth. And the reason I was so desirous to have you on was from a distance, I see all these dimensions to you as a man. I see an athlete. I see a man of faith. I see a black man. I see a man proud of his culture. I see a man who wants to create change.

1:04:19I see a man not devoid but with very minimal judgment of other people. Someone with an incredible calling, oratory skills off the charts. In life, you're always making people feel something. And what I love about you is I think you make people feel good and aspire to be better. There's four types of people. There's people that make really almost no impact. Then there's motivational people. Motivational people are great. You term it a motivational speaker. I'm called, you're a great motivational speaker, which is great. That plays to people's motives. If you do this, you can have a better life.

1:04:58If you do this, you can have a faster car. If you do this, you'll have a better marriage. If you do this, you'll have a better body. It plays to our motives, which is great. Then there's a very, very small group of people. They're inspirational. Inspirational people, they motivate us. But the root of inspirational is to be in spirit. Something affects us from a spiritual perspective, emotionally when they're in our presence. You have that, my friend. And then there's real rarefied air, which is someone who is aspirational. And this is a human being that when we're in their presence, we go, I'd kind of like to be a little bit more like them.

1:05:30And to me, you check all three boxes. You're motivational, you're inspirational, and you're an aspirational man. I aspire to be more like you. And if I ever have even one millimeter of 1 % of that, I'd be really grateful. So I want to acknowledge you about that. Thank you for saying that. It's true. You're It's remarkable. I want to also say one more thing, and I want to ask you one last question. I've enjoyed today tremendously. I have to. I don't know that I've had very many people on my show who are more thoughtful about the words they choose. They don't just throw. You don't throw words out, Sam.

1:06:02You don't. They're important to you. I'd like to meet your brother, too. Yeah. He's awesome. I think it would be a great conversation to have you both on together. Yeah. I think that would be fascinating. Before I ask this last question, I want to remind everybody, whenever you're listening to this, the book's out March 7th. So if it's after that, go get it. If it's before that, heck, go preorder it. It'll probably be after that. Change starts with you following your fire to heal a broken world. And you get the feeling, don't you, everybody? By the way, his Instagram is TheSamacho. So go there as well.

1:06:32Follow him on Instagram. While you're getting it, go grab The Power of One More by Ed Milet. I hear that book's pretty good too. But let me ask you this lastly, because you're young. You're in the midst of making many, many dreams come true. someone's sitting there and they go okay i'm gonna get your book and i want to do all these things but i want to go back to the price thing for a minute be real here too i've only asked three or four people this on the show i think is it worth it to pursue your whatever your changes in your dream i i had a martin king jr's son on so i guess he's mlk the third and uh i wrote my dissertation on MLK.

1:07:12So I really wanted to interview him. And sometimes I think these people that have stood up in life to make change in their life, his life was literally taken from him, right? And I think of other people I know that, you know, they paid a pretty big price in order to make their dream come true. And so I wonder, like, was all the price you had to pay as a young man worth it to get to the NFL? Right now, is the price you're paying, because there's a price, as you said earlier, you're away from your family more, you got to travel, you're probably going to go to Connecticut to do ESPN. You got to go back there.

1:07:41You got more notoriety now. Now you got a book out. Now you're busy. Then you're the podcast. You got this, you got that. You got a family, you got friends. Is all of it worth it? And I mean, if it's, if the answer is no, or I don't know, that's acceptable too. But what's the honest truth about that? You never know what doors are going to open until you walk through them. And I'm not talking about the door that you walk through. I'm talking about the door that begets another door in high school. I was not this, I'm going to go in the NFL. That was not my thing. It wasn't. Not even close. I was like, maybe I want to go to Ivy League.

1:08:16I don't know. And I got a chance to go and get a scholarship and go to play at Texas. And when I wanted to actually be good, because some people were just happy to be at Texas, oh, I made it. But when I wanted to actually be good, there was a price to pay. I ate different. I drank different. I thought different. I worked out different. All these things were, I did them differently than others to get to that next goal of making it to the NFL. Then I made it to the NFL. And it opened up a lot of doors. But then it's like the average is three years. I want to, do I want to actually do this? And there's a sacrifice.

1:08:49But all of a sudden that nine-year career provided a platform where people now want to listen to what I have to say. And by God's grace, God put something inside of me to get out. And write that first book, Let the World See You. That came out right as soon as I tore my peg and out for the season and finished my career. Boom. Book number one. and then all of a sudden we you know fast forward and now i'm on espn bigger platform all the things right because i played in the nfl because i made those sacrifices all that long time ago that i didn't even think i did not think okay if i go to this college and then i stay healthy enough and then i go to the national championship game and then i go to the nfl and get drafted and i play nine years and then i'll go because i'm not thinking about that it's just a thing in front of you so what is worth it is making that decision to take that risk to have to make that call to To speak to that person, to address that issue, to ask that question, to answer that question.

1:09:39That's worth it because you never know what's on the other side to go address that thing that you've been afraid of. That's worth it. And I can't tell you I can't tell you I can't tell you what's going to come of it. But I can tell you that saying no, you will regret and that not showing up. You will regret. I've closed some doors that I went out of out of anger. I don't want to use the word regret, but I'll use the word regret. I'm like, man, I wish I would have been, I wish I wouldn't have let my emotions get the best of me in that situation. And God still does redeem. But what I will say is, and I don't want to just flippantly say that, God redeems broken things and broken people and broken situations.

1:10:21All those 11 videos that you flip through, God can and will redeem that. Whether in this life or the life to come, he will. So when we've seen that with you, you've seen that with your family. I've seen that with mine. So is it worth it? Hands down, absolutely yes. But you may not know for 15 years. So true. And I'm seeing that right now. The decisions I made, by God's grace, my parents made to put us in the schools we went to, to go to this football camp at USC that we didn't even know back in 07 or 06. We showed up at this camp. It's an invite-only camp. We weren't invited, but we still got a chance to get in this camp.

1:10:55All of a sudden, boom, scholarship. Top 300 camp. Top 300 kids from the entire state of California. And me and my brother. and for whatever reason boom we blew up and scholarship because we showed up and then that scholarship had all the other schools offer now every school's offering right oh boom i pick a school i go to that school i decided to be disciplined notice i decided to be disciplined it's a decision and we might be safe but i decided all of a sudden for the opportunity i didn't know if i was going to get drafted or not but i did i went to a team and i decided then that this wasn't going to be the end i made it to the nfl no i want to be a starter i want to set records i want to go to the Pro Bowl.

1:11:31Why? I'm not really sure yet. I just want to honor. But it's like, but all of a sudden that effort led to something. No, I never made a Pro Bowl. I was nominated twice, never made a Pro Bowl. I never, you know, set the sack record. I was second as a rookie. You're right. Pretty good. And it opened doors. And then I studied film. I wanted to be good. So all of a sudden, now ESPN, I'm using what I did my NFL career. In school, I would work. I loved writing. I could recite Shakespeare. Those are things that I love when I was little and now I'm using that to memorize things right now I'm trying to memorize like scripture and the word of God not to impress people because I need it so it's like is it worth it absolutely yes and you may not know why I don't either but God does God shows up on the other side of fear brother what a remarkable conversation today was look at the heads back in the studio in the sound room they're nodding too and that ain't normal just so you know So what a great conversation.

1:12:30I'm truly grateful and honored I got to share the hour with you. It was awesome. And if you don't come back here and do this again, there's something wrong with both of us. Yes. I would love to do this again. I would too. Yeah. God bless you, brother. Make sure you go grab his book, guys. Change Starts With You, Following Your Fire to Heal a Broken World. And please share this episode. There's so much juice and stuff in here for the people you love and care about and believe in. Share it with them. If you believe in them and you love them, you'd share this with them. Take care, everybody. God bless you.

1:13:00This is The Ed Milad Show.