Creating A Winning Culture With Ellis Wyms

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markell. I feel incredibly lucky to be here right this moment. Blessed, in fact. That got another beautiful day. Every day is a beautiful day when you're above ground, as somebody once told me. And as much as that sounds like a cliche, man, that's just true. It's just a fact. Because the alternative isn't. It's a good one, right? I mean, we all have challenges. I got challenges. Doesn't matter, you know, how good things are going in one area. Money, relationships, health. I mean those are all blessings. But doesn't mean that I don't wake up and have an ache or a pain or a complaint or something going on in my headspace that I just don't understand. And the more I read, the more people I meet, those regular everyday people as well as people who've done some significantly, you know, things that other people would envy, impressive things, it doesn't make them any different as people. Everybody's got the same aches and pains, same complaints, same, same crap between their ears sometimes. And I'm no different. So I just feel grateful to be here and grateful that I've got a wonderful guest today that we get to meet, get to know. He's somebody I'm just getting to know, somebody that I look forward to getting to know. Actually. I'm going to introduce him to you in just a second, but let's start with his name, Mr. Ellis Wims. And I'll read a bit of his bio and then we're going to dig right in with ellis. As a 6th round draft pick out of Mississippi State, Ellis Williams quickly established himself as a mainstay one of the most renowned defenses in NFL history. On his way to a successful eight year NFL career, Wims reached the pinnacle of the sports world in just his second season, helping the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to take take home their first and only championship in Super Bowl. Looks like 37 if I'm getting my Roman numerals correct. Following the conclusion of his playing career, Ellis launched athletes for computer science. Despite a successful NFL career, a pathway to success in football was not always clear to Ellis. Born and raised in rural Mississippi, he envisioned a world where. Where students from all communities have the same opportunities to develop skills in computer science. That's so cool. As industries continue to be shaped by technology, it was clear to Ellis that these tools are needed for students to be successful in a 21st century job market. That is freaking way cool. Ellis, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you with us today, man.

I appreciate you having me, man. You know, it's super bowl week, man, so, you know, I'm geeked. I'm getting ready to go to Miami in a few hours. So, yeah, Super Bowl. I'm amped up right now.

It's it. This is it, man. This is the culmination of just endless hours of practice and playing and film and getting chewed out in the locker room and winning and losing and everything. Man, talk about aches and pains. Like, I didn't plan for that intro into this conversation to be so on point with your former profession, but it's true. Hey, listen, what's not written in this? I read a lot of bios and make a lot of introductions in my work have for more than 10 years, and I'm not always really moved by what somebody's doing, especially when they've sort of transitioned out of one career and into another. Sometimes, you know, it's. It just doesn't move me. I don't know how else to put it, but this did and does. And I really appreciate what you're doing in the world right now.

Appreciate that, man.

What's not. What's not written in that? What's what? Didn't I say that you'd love for people to know about you?

I would say that I'm a family man, you know, I'm a father, you know, love chasing my kids around baseball and basketball every weekend, yelling at referees and having fun. Let's see.

I don't know.

It was written in there. I'm from Indianola, Mississippi. So at heart, I'm a country boy. Grew up in Indianola, hometown of B.B. king. King of the blues.

That's right.

So a lot of blues, a lot of hole in the wall clubs, a lot of catfish plates, a lot of good people. So, yeah, I mean, I think I want people to know I'm a father. I'm from a small town in the south, and I don't know, I just. I'm in Texas because I like barbecue.

Well, I was wondering about that hat you're wearing, man, you got a. You guys can't see it. Houston Astros hat on.

I went to an event in New York a couple weeks ago after the cheating scandal came out, and I wore this hat. And the New Yorkers were. They weren't really nice to me. I'll just say that they weren't really nice. They have some choice words for me about the Astros hat.

Well, I got. I'm a Yankees fan. I grew up in New York, man, so I could. I can appreciate it. Because when. You know what the Yankees in the last two years have had, two of the best seasons they. Well, I can't say they've ever had, because with 27 world championships, when you don't win a world championship, it's not one of your best seasons. But when you win more than 100 games in consecutive seasons and don't win the World Series, as a Yankee fan, you go, what is. I mean, wtf, right? And so, like, a lot of New Yorkers, man, they can get on folks. And. And to just think that maybe. Maybe some team had a little unfair advantage in connection with That's. We hate the Sox, man. And now they're. They're under fire now, too.

So, you know, man, you know what? It's an old saying that if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, especially in sports, or if you ain't looking, but you gotta figure out how to cheat without getting caught. That's the thing.

You're being very bold right there to say that. Cause I would have probably said, you know, if you're not looking for an edge, you know, an edge. But you're right. You use the right words.

I mean, blatantly cheating. Blatantly cheating in football, if the referee not looking and I'm holding. I'm not holding.

It'S like, what can you get away with?

What can you get away with?

Right?

But the Astros didn't get away with it, so, you know, they tried a little too hard. I say they were trying a little too hard.

It's a risk reward thing. I mean, you take the risk, and. And they did get the reward. But hey, now. Now it's come back a little bit. I mean, when you're. You know, I'm trying to remember the name of their. Their manager, but he just lost his job. Yeah, I mean, Hinge. Right?

His last name, A.J. he. He got fired. He lost his job. But, hey, he went home with a World Series trophy. It's just, you know, it's got a little. It's got a little smudge in the corner.

Got a little smudge in the corner. They're not gonna put an asterisk next to that, that stat or something, I.

Guess, but just a smudge.

You know what I was. It's so interesting. We, we went out to see some blues last night, in fact. And so when you were bringing up BB King earlier, I'm thinking about when I saw him in Red bank, you know, sitting down with Lucille in his hand and. Yeah, I mean, that, that man was, that man was a gift and what he could do with a guitar, I mean, just incredible, right?

I mean, you know what, he came back to Indian. Indianola every summer and did like a blues festival. And that was, you know, Indianola, Mississippi, small town, but we get people from all over the planet in our little town, you know, eating catfish out there in a, in a field with mosquitoes everywhere, listening to B.B. king play blues until 2 in the morning. So. But, you know, so I grew up on the blues. I grew up, you know, in that time.

And.

There'S some things that you don't have growing up in rural Mississippi, but a lot of great things that you do, you know, with your people and your family and the connections that you have there. People are simple. Life is simple. So, you know, a lot of things you don't get caught up in that. You probably would if you were living in another place. So is not. I wouldn't say it's not always optimal, but it's definitely a blessing.

Oh, that's a, that's a beautiful, beautiful way to put that. Yeah. We saw John Mayall last night, 86 years old. Check it out. He's a British blues God icon. Played with Eric Clapton in this thing called the Blues breakers back in the day. And I just was blown away because we. And I'm going to talk to you about this in a moment too. Resilience is a big topic for us. In fact, when it comes to the kind of keynote speaking that I do and the consulting we do with organizations around the globe, it's always about this topic of how do you gain a greater edge in the marketplace? So we talk about not sort of cheating, but it's a cheating of a sort when you think about it, because any kind of edge you can get, you typically in competition, you don't tell your opponent about it. You're not going to tell the other team that you've discovered something. Just like a company, an organization is not going to tell their competition that they just discovered some kind of an Edge, you know, and we're not talking about a steroid edge. It's a performance edge on the side of how you become more resilient, how you increase your capacity, how you can lift your performance based on how you take care of yourself, which can be really relevant to your, you know, the former profession you've got. And also with. With why you started helping kids in the way that you're currently helping them. So just real quick on John. I mean, 86 years old and this guy standing up behind the keyboard out in front, he's got a ridiculously cool, eclectic, rad band with these, like, young. Young bassist guys, really radio really neat on the bass. And then. And then he's got a woman, this fiery red hair on. On the electric guitar, playing lead guitar, and she's just shredding. And older dude behind the drums and. And he's standing out in front for two hours. Didn't take. Didn't take a break, man. They didn't even take a. You know, like, nothing even. Even right, you know, with their encore. Just came right back out, you know, and he's on the keyboard, he's playing guitar, he's playing the harp. And I'm thinking, man, this guy is the picture of resilience. Who any of us would want to be 86 years old, still doing what we're most passionate about when we're 86, filling up an entire club, getting paid to do it. I mean, that's amazing.

That's amazing. And yeah, like you said, it's taking care of yourself. But I think more than anything, I think he probably. He found his lane and he got in it and he stayed in it, and he's fulfilled by what he's doing. So, you know, when you love what you're doing like that, and you really find what you're passionate about again, it's not work to do it. You know, it would be work for him not to do it.

Probably. Right.

It'd probably be harder for him just if they told him you couldn't do that anymore. So, you know, that's just a testament to really finding your lane and finding something that can get you out of bed in the morning.

Yeah. So let's talk about your lane, because, you know, obviously you started playing football when you were a kid, right? I'm assuming you don't make it to the NFL when you decide in high school. I mean, very few people just go, hey, I'd like to play some football.

You got a few monsters out there like that. But, yeah, for the Most part, you got to be raised in it a little bit, right?

Those folks are outside the bell curve for sure. So give us a little bit of the history that leads you to the NFL and that becomes your lane, and then you pivot, you make a change to, in retiring, et cetera. So give us a little essence of that story, if you could.

Well, I mean, I think, you know, I started playing football, you know, growing up in a small town. You know, you don't have all these football leagues and little leagues, so you just started playing with your friends in the neighborhood. And when I was a kid, you know, it was Jerry Rice and Walter Payton and Singletary and Lawrence Taylor, you know, all those guys.

That's my man.

Yeah, I got a chance to meet lt. LT is still. LT is still off the chain, man. He's like, either. Either barrel or laughs, and he lives his life, man. But those guys were, you know, kind of people we looked up to. They kind of got us interested in the game. So I started playing when I was in junior high. Actually broke my leg the first year I went out. Was in a full leg cast, but still ended up going back. Got went to high school and was a starter on my high school team. My high school team, we weren't that good. Like, you know, we, you know, we. We played a lot of homecomings, you know how, you know, teams, you know, you're gonna get scheduled for homecoming when the team's like, yeah, we need to get this win this week. So, yeah, we gonna scare those guys. Like, we were those guys. Like, so I didn't come from a winning culture, but I think what was always something about me, because again, when you grew up in that environment, a lot of times, you know, the culture, is it a winning culture? Like, you know, we. We have an off season program. Two or three guys may show up. You know, we might start the season with 80 guys and 20 may finish the season. Because the culture just wasn't built for guys to be resilient and guys to really show up and when things are hard and be there, practice every day. But I think I was always just kind of wired to just really just kind of do what people ask.

Do what?

I committed myself to my grandfather. I didn't have my father growing up. My grandfather had a huge impact on my life. And he was a military man. He was in World War II, so he was a very hard worker. He was also a carpenter, so he built a lot of houses. So I think some of my work ethic of just not showing up Just, you know, because. Just showing up because it's your job and you're committed to do it, and I just happened to be a good enough athlete, you know, when showing up and doing the work, that I stood out, you know, So I stood out in a culture that was, you know, wasn't a winning culture. We lost a lot of games. We didn't play good football. But when we went to play games, I played well. And I got an opportunity to be the first person from my high school to get, like, a Division 1 scholarship, you know, which was. Which was really, really cool. But for me, at that time, like, that was the pinnacle, right? Cause I'd never seen anybody go to college, right? So it's like, this is it. I'm going to Mississippi State on a full football scholarship. Like, that was it. So I get to Mississippi State, and, you know, I was a linebacker in high school. I showed up, like, 40 pounds bigger than they recruited me. So, of course, they made me move the defensive line. And I hated it because I wanted to be a linebacker, but I did pretty good at it. And Coach Sherrill. Coach Jackie Sherrill. You remember Jackie Sherrill?

Sure do.

Jackie Sherrill coached at Pitt, coached at A and M. Coach Tony Dorsett, he was the coach at Mississippi State. They recruited me. Great guy, mentor, father figure, but he was the first person that told me, hey, man, if you keep doing what you're supposed to do, you might get a chance to play in the NFL. And I still. It wasn't, like, real to me, but, you know, he kind of spoke that into me. It's like, okay, maybe I can. So I go through most of my career in college. I'm not a starter, right? I'm backing people up all the way to my senior year. My senior year, I think I started six or seven games, then I got hurt. And so, you know, I did. Still, this thing of getting drafted wasn't really real to me until I saw my name on, like, a list that ranked me with defensive ends. So now I'm like, okay, I'm getting drafted, right? So, you know, that was pretty cool. And then, you know, I get, you know, I go to Senior bowl, play there, go to combine. You know, you combine, they poke you, prod you. And I'm looking. I go from, you know, not thinking I'm gonna get drafted to happy I'm gonna get drafted to after the combine, I'm like, man, I'm better than these dudes.

Yep.

I'm looking at everybody go through the combine and Run it. I'm like, now better than these dudes. Like, I gotta get drafted. Like, at least on the first day. But then the draft comes and I don't. Right. So the first day, I don't get drafted, you know, okay, I didn't go first day. Second day we're going through, we get to the sixth round, and the Buffalo Bills called me.

Yeah.

And they had a conversation with me. They said, look, we don't think you're gonna get drafted here. If you don't get drafted, we like to sign you as a free agent. So at that moment, I'm like, I'm not even getting drafted. Cause this team's calling me and telling me, like, you know, if I don't get drafted, I'm coming there. And of course, like, nobody wants to live in Buffalo. Like, absolutely nobody on the planet wants to go live in Buffalo.

Hey, all the people from Buffalo don't take offense to that. Man, you know how beautiful Buffalo is.

You know, it looks like the coldest place on. On the planet.

It's like the tundra.

It looks like the coldest place on the planet. Okay. Just because of the cold. Like, yeah, city's beautiful. But, man, I'm a country boy from Mississippi.

Like, yeah, the opposite. No, no.

Even for the NFL. Like, God. But so I. When they called me, I kind of freak out because I think I'm not going to get drafted. Sitting out in my car crying. And then my mom, you know, we're at my grandmother's house, my mom comes out and she has my cell phone. She's like, tony Dungy's on the phone. So, you know, I'm in my car crying, got the phone from Coach Dungy. Sorry about that.

That's Tony dungycon.

Yeah, it might be Coach Dungeon hitting me up now. What's up, Coach? I'll probably see him this week somewhere, man. He does a lot of things in the community, so I'll probably be his All Pro dad event this weekend. But I took the call from Tony. He was like, we're gonna take you with this pick here in the sixth round. Be ready to come in and work hard and earn a spot. So, you know, that was my journey from an environment where it was a tough environment where I had to stand out when nobody else has stood out. Going to college, not being a starter, and really kind of work my way through there to get drafted in the sixth round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and getting a chance to live my dream. So, you know, it was. It was looking back on it is an amazing journey, man. I tell people all the time, there's nowhere you can go to get the feeling of getting an opportunity to play in the NFL on Sundays. Like, that's just something you can't ever replace.

So you said earlier you talk about winning culture, and I think whether it's in a small organization, big organization, or anywhere else, any other environment, like even a family environment, you and I, before we started this show, we're talking about your kids, my kids, and. And. And so you want to have a winning culture. I just think that's a. That's a great term. And so I want to understand your definition. How would you define what. What is a winning culture?

A winning culture is one where everybody involved and everybody on the team or in the group is pushing together toward one goal. And that goal is the singularly most important thing for everyone. And it's a unique thing, and it's not something that everyone can do. You see the coaches in the NFL, they're constantly changing over, changing over and changing over, because they don't have people in leadership positions that understand how to build a winning culture. And at that time, when I got drafted to the Buccaneers, Coach Dungy was the poster child for being able to build winning culture. I mean, he took that team from when they were. They weren't the Bucs, they were the yucks. They were like 0:16. They were the bottom dwellers of the NFL. And Coach Dungy came in and he was able to build a winning culture, which was kind of build a way of doing things, a way we do things, the way we practice, the way we prepare. We're going to have a mantra throughout this team of how we behave in the community, how we behave on the practice field. The effort we give on the practice field is the way we do things. And everybody in the organization had to be accountable to it. And the leaders in the organization, the best players on our team, they were bought in. So the first day you come in, you understand what the culture is from a Warren Sapp or Derrick Brooks or John lynch or Rundy Barber. Those guys as players will let you know what the standard was and make sure you understood that every day we hit the grass. Every day we're in the meeting room, we're locked in, we're focused, and we're getting better. And. And if you can't do that, then you can't be here. And you understand that really early on.

What was that mantra? Did you just explain it? Was it. What are the words that were that you define that mantra?

As I think the thing you'll hear Mike Tomlin say it right now. Say it now. Even as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, he was our defensive bass coach on our Super Bowl. And the thing that you will hear most is no excuses, no explanations. Get it done. No excuses. No explanations. So nobody wants to hear a reason why you weren't there, why you didn't do it? I failed, or I slipped or I forgot, or it was no excuses, no explanations. Max effort. Know your job. Know your assignment. If you're on the grass, we gotta be able to trust all 11 guys, understand exactly what to do on every single play. And you execute your job first. And that's a very unselfish way of playing a team sport. Cause again, you get paid by. You get paid by stats a lot of times in production.

Right.

But in order to be within the scheme of what we're doing, you may have to do your job. Even though the play is over there or you think the play may be happening over there. You can go make that tackle, you can go get that sack, or you can go make that interception. The scheme of our defense says you stay here and you guard this area. So you have to be unselfish and put the scheme first. If down to a man like you put the scheme first. You play as hard as you can, but you do your job first. And you're committed to our goal as a defense, not your goals as a player. Right.

One goal for a team that. You know, sports is such a great analogy for other areas of life and in business in particular, because any team, any sports team, they. They've got one goal. Everybody on that team's got one goal. What's that goal? Right. What's that goal?

It's supposed to be winning a championship.

That's it. There's one goal. And everybody's bought in. Like you say, everybody's bought into that one goal. And. And that's a different kind of accountability that exists. Because in an organization, for example, you got people who are. Who are thinking about themselves. I mean, look, you got people on. On teams that are thinking about themselves, too, and those are losing teams. Right. The most part, when you get a team that can win, it's because everybody. Everybody's pulling in the same direction. Everybody's on. On that same page. Yeah. And. And putting themselves second to the. To the overriding goal of just, let's win a game. Yeah.

That's when. At the end of the day, no matter. No matter if your football team or organization, you're gonna need People to achieve whatever goals that the company has. And everybody's gotta buy in. And you have to create a culture within that company that allows, that motivates people to want to buy in. And sometimes, you know, leaders is the leader isn't the person that's trying to tell everybody what to do. Like, the leader is the person that can inspire everybody to believe in the same goal, to set the same priorities. And the best leaders I've been around in the NFL, again, they're able to understand their individual players that they're in charge of, whether it's the D line coach or the coordinator or they're able to understand their guys and they're able to really get everybody on the same page based on how those guys think, how they process information. So the best, the best leaders I've been around yet are tough, but they get it. They really get to know. Not like personally like, but they want to know how you think, what motivates you. You know, why are you here? So they can give you that motivation.

Yeah, yeah. This is. Maybe I'm going to get your, your feedback on this because to me, feedback and accountability is such a big deal in how it is that we get better and how we are able to help other people get better as leaders. Whether again, it's a leader in a family or as a leader leader in a company. And so my theory is that when, when. Because I've never played professional sports, I played in college and did, you know, been around it all my life. But there's, there's a difference between feedback that's, that's rooted in judgment, which we all know what it feels like when you're being judged. Right. People don't want to make mistakes. They get tense. They, they are defensive. Right. No p it. Right. But they get super defensive when they feel like somebody's being critical of them and judging them. So high intensity arena of professional sports. My theory is that what you saw, especially among the. In the winning circle and the teams that won were systems of accountability and feedback that was rooted in something other than judgment. I feel like what was it was that feedback that accountability was rooted in love. Love of the game, love of the mission of that singular purpose that everybody was bought into. I mean, is that far off from the, from, from how you experienced it?

Oh, that's right. That's right on the head. You know, with Rod Marinelli, he just left as the defense coordinator for the Cowboys. I think Oakland just hired him as their defensive line coach, but he was my defensive line coach for Five years in Tampa. And one of the things he always did, I mean, he was tough, like he'd get on you, but it always be rooted in the expectations, the standard. So if the standard is for, if you're one on one with offensive lineman, you beat him, right? And if you don't beat him, he's gonna get on you by not beating that guy. He's not gonna tell you that you suck for not beating him. He's like, hey, the standard is you're one on one, you beat that guy. That's the standard. Let's go. Now he might say it with some harsh words, right? He might get on you, but it's never in a situation where again, he's degrading you or tearing you down, right? Because again, if you're trying to accomplish something, and I do a presentation called the Winning Edge and if you're trying to accomplish something, especially something big or like winning in the NFL, you got to go out and go against a 6, 7, 350 pound lineman. You can't go out there not being confident. Like, you can't go out there not believing I'm going to beat this guy or I'm going to achieve this thing. Because you're going, if you don't believe it, you're going to attack it like that. And then he's going to punch you in the face. Like in NFL, like if you run up on somebody timid, they're going to punch you in the chest and knock you on the ground. So you have to attack it. Like, I believe I'm about to drag this guy. Like, he sucks. I'm better than him. He can't stop me. And the best coaches will make sure you go into a game with that mindset. Not, not second guessing yourself and not being sure about your.

They build you up.

Yeah.

And, and they, and they've. But ultimately that, that love is. Gets defined in different ways. So I was a lifeguard at the beach and was life and death all the time on this beach. We made hundreds of rescues every day at hundred, more than 100,000 pat on the beach on Saturdays and Sundays. And we were a crew of 20 lifeguards and we got that job done every single day. I was there seven summers. And it was because that culture, as you said earlier, that how I would define the winning culture at our field was that we had each other's backs. We had a got your back culture. That was our mantra was nobody goes down in our water. Nobody goes down on our watch. I mean, this is Intense, even for football, like, we're talking about intense stuff. We would say, life or death. You either make the save or you die trying. That was. That was our mantra. We live with that. But we were all bought in, and we knew that people had our backs all the time. So. Yeah, I mean, you know, even in baseball, like, he's talking about the Astros and the Yankees. I mean, you think about classic example on the pitcher's mound, right? Pitchers throwing up some balls, balls are flying, or things are going on. Manager or, or coach, pitching coach comes out, you know, third baseman comes in, first baseman, catcher comes out, right? What are they doing on the mound? What are they saying to that guy, you suck, dude. You. Man, I don't see. I don't see anybody suck as bad as you. Going back to double A ball. It's. Forget Triple A, right? There's no conversation like that out there, right? It's like, how you feeling, man? You know, like, what's going on? How's your arm? What do you think about the next batter? And it's only because they want to win a game. It's not that people might have lost confidence or want to say something pretty harsh, even, you know, like, get personal, but they want to win a game.

They want to win. And again, it's that one goal. And again, they probably go out there on the mound and probably like, hey, man, how you feeling? I'm okay. You got 10 more pitches? I think I got 10 more. Let's go. These next 10. Let's go. Strike out these batters right now. Let's go. Because again, sometimes you just need to be pepped up, and everything comes from your mind, your mental, how you feel about it. I mean, you're. The body will do what the mind tells it to do, but you have to sometimes, you know, push it.

Yeah. And sometimes they're going to get out there and go, you know what? Give me the ball. I mean, it's like, give me the ball. But it's not, again, give me the ball. You suck. Go take a shower. It's like, yeah, we're going to. We're going to bring in somebody else to help. Now. Now, now it's going to. This is where it's. Again, not. Not a personal thing, but it's about that singular vision, whatever that is. So I want. I want to talk about your. Your leaving the NFL after an eight year amazing career. When did you guys win the super bowl, by the way? What year was that?

That was 2003.

2003. So I'm trying to think what year it was that the. In the. In the year that the Patriots were undefeated. And the only defeat they had that year was to the New York Giants that beat them in the Super Bowl. On the. On the way to that super bowl season winning season. The Giants may have been like, I don't know, finish the season eight and eight or something. I mean, they didn't have a great season, but they marched through the playoffs and they had to play Tampa Bay. Had to play. You guys in Tampa Bay. Were you playing at that time? Do you remember that?

No, I. That was. I think that was a year before I got there. Before I got there with that game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I. I was there. Let's see, we played against the Oakland Raiders when we basically traded for Jon Gruden. He was the Oakland coach in 02, and then we traded for him and we got him to Coach us in 03. So his last two teams end up playing each other in the super bowl, which was probably crazy.

Trippy. Yeah.

Wow.

So you play eight seasons and it's time to retire. What was that about? Because this has become a big thing right now with guys like Andrew Luck just. And. And I forget the. This other. Other guy. Just more recently. Yeah. Like 28 years old saying, yeah, great.

Great player, great linebacker, plays for the Carolina Panthers. Yeah, it's. I mean, everybody doesn't get to choose. I know during that time, you know, I didn't get to choose. I mean, basically, for most guys, the NFL says, look, we're not gonna hire you anymore, you know, so. So nobody wants to sign you to a contract, so you're done. And again, that's a tough transition, man. Cause again, football has been your life. Like, you've seen yourself through that prism from junior high, through high school, through college, through pros. That's who you are. And now when it's not there anymore, you are. You're a little lost. Like, what's next? Who am I when I don't have on a helmet? And that's always a really tough question for guys to ask when they're done with the game.

Yeah. And I think when you said it earlier that you change. You know, that you're. You were in your lane, and that's powerful when people are in their lane. I think that. And I want you to weigh in on your experiences. I don't feel like you changed your lane even with what you're doing. I think you just widened your lane, and that's how I'd frame it, because what you're doing now, you have tremendous passion for and helping kids. And I'd really love for you to tell us about athletes for computer science and what inspired you to do that and what in that transition was most difficult for you. Because I don't think. My guess is most people watching or listening to this right now have never heard that about the NFL, that this sort of a time, I mean, we know when people get injured and, you know, you got to retire or when you choose to retire, like some of the folks we just mentioned. But that moment where you sort of get the, you know, you get the sentence, it's like somebody says to you, you're done. And we're like, no, no, no, I got more.

But it is not your choice. Like, it's not your choice. So it's hard, man. It was hard for me, you know, because I really wanted to play. And, you know, I was working out, trying to get in great shape, but I had so many injuries. Both my shoulders were bone on bone. My lower back was, you know, bone on bone. Had L4, L5 was bone, bone, bone. My ankles were arthritic. So even though I was 29 years old, like, my body was beat up pretty bad. So bringing me in as a player is like, we're bringing in, you know, damaged goods A lot of times when you're at that point. So they just have to weigh a younger player that costs less, older player that costs more, and he's hurt. So that's hard for you to take that your career's over. So in that transition, like, you know, I got pulled in a bunch of different directions by a bunch of different people because I didn't know what I wanted to do. Like, so, you know, somebody came along and said, hey man, you should try this or you should try this or what about this? And it's like, I don't know. So, you know, you just end up kind of just going in the wind because again, you football is gone, it's not coming back, and you don't know what's in front of you. So that was a really, really tough transition for me. But I've always done stuff in the community, even from when I was, you know, in my early 20s, like, I used to do football camps and go to school to speak. So after, you know, I tried being working in the trucking industry and being in that industry. Cause somebody asked me there, I was like, nah, I don't want to do that. Real estate, it was boring, right? Money management, don't like it, all that stuff. There's Nothing really. Kind of get my juices flowing. Like, I wouldn't know. Like, yeah, I'm looking forward to going to look at these balance sheets today. Like, I just wasn't, you know, it wasn't my thing. Not, it couldn't be somebody else's numbers, could be somebody else's thing. Wasn't my thing. So I've always done stuff in the community. I've always been very tech savvy. My major in college was technology teacher ed. So I wanted to teach tech classes and coach football if, you know, when I, when I graduated. So I started working with Microsoft on trying to find innovative ways for kids to stay fit. So we would, you know, go in and do programs, raise money, donate Xboxes with body tracking cameras, all these different technology to help kids kind of track their fitness, track their movements, but then.

Their physical fitness mostly, right?

Yeah, physical fitness. Yeah, it was physical fitness. But, you know, I started to kind of see the places that I was in. I'm like, man, these places are hurting economically. Like, it's not like the problem is that they're, you know, they need to exercise more. A lot of the issues around the country is people don't have a way to participate in the economy and they don't have the confidence that they can.

Right.

So I started to see some of the, some of the computer science education things that Microsoft was doing in the store through my partnership. And I thought I was like, you know what? Why can't other people have access to this stuff? No. People who don't live near a Microsoft store. Because if you live near a Microsoft store, you can go take classes whenever you want for free. But if you don't, you don't have access. And most of the country, most of our educational systems, is struggling to find access to training that's actually relevant to the economy. So I created Athletes for Computer Science. We teach the classes remotely. We teach them in rural areas and inner cities. Anywhere in the country, we can teach classes. And I get athletes to come on as education ambassadors on our video conferences. They come on, they visit classes, they get a chance to talk to the students, engage with the students. Students get to ask some questions. They encourage the students, they inspire the students. We hire college students to teach our classes, computer science students, because we're teaching computer science fundamentals K through 8. So it's not like we get our college students who have some background in computer science education, students who have a desire to be teachers, and they get a chance to learn how to teach remotely and teach something and inspire kids in a way to do something that could possibly be relevant in a career or actually starting a business. And so we, I wanted to be a part of really kind of helping support our educational system in that way.

That's so cool. I mean my mother in law was a teacher for 30 years and my wife 18 years, my dad for 30 plus years. I mean I did it for two years in middle school. So I know that age group pretty well.

30 of them.

They beat me up good man. 30. I had five classes. 30 each, you know, 150, 13, 14 year olds. It was, I'm still exhausted from that.

You gotta have the patience of a monk.

Patience of a monk and yeah, nothing more important than that. I just can't say thank you enough for the, for being inspired to do that. It must feel great. I mean that that's where you're, you're, you're expressing your passion these days. And, and when did you start that? How long ago is it?

I started that in 2018 and we've had over 1,000 kids go through our program. And again we teach these kids like they have our class through the entire school year. So it's not just a visit, one class like they have our class through the entire school year. So yeah, it's awesome. It's great to see because again you see federal government, state government, private sector talking about the need for STEM education and the need for workers with computer science skills, technology skills. And a lot of these jobs, the best jobs in America get outsourced because other countries have focused, make that a focus of their educational system. So they have the labor force with that expertise that companies like Apple and Google and Amazon, that's the expertise that they need. Exxon, Chevron. I'm here in Houston in the oil and gas sector again I was meeting with one of their directors of their IT at Exxon the other day. He talked about, man, we have to compete with Google, we have to compete with Microsoft for talent. And our issue is we're not as cool as Google, right? We're not as cool as Microsoft, right? So again there's there, those are some of the most powerful companies in the country and they're struggling looking for the right talent. So you know, I want to be a part of, part of kind of.

Cultivating that talent, right?

There's a need, there's an opportunity, why not?

There's, there's a huge opportunity forward in the near and long term future that these are jobs are going to be around. That's fantastic. Want to quickly get into your definition of resilience, and then we're going to talk about rituals as we wrap things up. But how do you. How do you. Because you mentioned resilience earlier, and it's a. A lot of interest to us. What. How would you define resilience?

Just understanding that you're going to lose, you're not going to win it every time, and being prepared to just keep moving forward. Like being a defensive lineman. I got blocked a lot, but I only had to, you know, I got two sacks in the game. One player of the game. I might have played 40, 50 snaps, you know, 30, 40 pass plays where I got blocked, I win two of them, I'm player of the game. So you have to be resilient. You have to be able to say, okay, you blocked me that time. Okay, I lost that time. Okay, you got me that time. Okay, you told me no that time. Yeah, you told me no. 10 people just told me no. But, hey, I gotta keep moving. I gotta keep going. And eventually you're land where you want to land. So that's resilience to me. It's just like. Just understanding like, you're gonna lose, people are gonna tell you no, and you just gotta keep trying.

Yeah, people. I think we're raised in so many ways to see failure as. As just an unacceptable result. You know, like failure almost amounts to it a little mini death. You know, we die a little every time we fail because we've been trained that there's. There's such consequences attached to failure. You know, your grades in school, whether you got, you know, ever there were consequences attached to making a mistake. And even. Even today in our culture, I mean, in. In just sort of societally, we see this. This culture, I think Bill Maher calls it the cancel culture. You know, makes a mistake and boom, they get. They taken off the air. You know, if you see an entertainer or somebody that's on, you know, in the movies or on TV or something, and they. They make a mistake, I'm not. And by the way, I am not defending certain kinds of mistakes that people make. I mean, if you violate the law, you violate somebody's rights, there ought to be consequences. Absolutely. And at the same time, I think we. The pendulum has swung to such a degree that we're also losing sight of the fact. I think, I feel that we're human beings by nature. It's just what you're saying. I mean, a part of being a human being is to learn resilience, which is to learn from experience. And the greatest Teacher of experience are the mistakes we make. I mean, I don't know. It's one of those things we're going to.

People don't have space to make mistakes anymore. That's. That's a tough society to live in.

It is. It's tough. And certainly, I guess if we're closing the loop on this one, when it comes to your. Your. Your professional experience, both as a football player and as a business person, if you. If you take. Remove the. The failure piece, the making mistakes piece from the equation, what would you be left with on a football team or in a business?

Yeah. I mean, one. It wouldn't be fun, right? It wouldn't be fun because, again, part of the fun of getting a chance to compete is knowing that you can lose and knowing that you got to compete and knowing that you have to make the right move and trying to figure out what move you need to make. Knowing business and growing this organization. Again, what I'm doing, I think is a great cause, but at the end of the day, it's building the organization. It's building a business. So I have to know, make the right move, develop the right partnerships, talk to the right people. I'm going to talk to people who are going to tell me no. I'm going to talk to people who want to tell me yes. There's going to be. I'm constantly growing and learning and evolving every single day as far as running this organization. But I'm never going to quit, right? I'm never going to quit. And so I know eventually everything will be exactly what I want it to be. Just. It's not on my time. It's just on God's time. And that's. And I just got to keep working, man. So, hey, so now I got to tell you this, right Now I got to tell you this. We got to finish up because my wife will beat me if I don't go pick up my.

All right, so it's perfect. The last thing else I want to ask you is just give us one ritual, one personal ritual you've got that helps you to remain resilient. Stay resilient.

Meditation, man. Meditation. Just taking 10 minutes to myself and trying not to think about anything because again, running this organization, having a family, having a wife, four children. Mom on this board of this organization, got to call this person. Got to make sure my children are practicing, make sure they're doing their homework, make sure my wife is happy. Like, all of these different things, man. Like just that 10 minutes to be like, man, I don't want to think. I want to just. I just don't want to exist right now. I just want to just, like, shut my brain down and not think of anything. So I would say my best ritual that I have is 10 minutes of meditation every day.

There you go. And when you talk about tens, I just finishing up this book, 10% happier, which is a book about mindfulness and meditation by Dan Harris. A killer book. So, first of all, Ellis, thank you so much for being on the show today. I've ridiculously enjoyed this conversation. And I know everybody else, same thing. So my reminder to our audience, in addition to letting us know your comments and what you thought about the conversation, any questions you've got, just to remember what a blessing it is to be here now in this. Whatever this is, because in this moment, when we're taking our breath, this breath right now, when you. You wake up tomorrow and you take another breath and you're awake, you can realize there are people in that same exact moment who are taking their last breath. And that makes that moment special, sacred, even something you can be grateful for in the midst of any other thing that's going on in your life, you can be grateful in that moment. And if you want to dare to really stretch the bounds of your comfort zone, maybe say these four words when you wake up tomorrow. I love my life. I love my life. Ellis, do you love your life?

Love my life, man. I'm blessed.

Right on. All right, peace out, everybody. Ciao. We'll see you soon. Take care.

All right, man. Appreciate it.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own Pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, Join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.

Sam.