He Left Wall Street to Change Thousands of Lives Through Soccer | Adam Miles

Welcome to the Legacy All-Stars Podcast. We feature inspirational stories from people who dedicate themselves to helping others. Here is your host, Alan Pavlosky.

Welcome back to the Legacy All-Stars Podcast. I'm your host, Alan Pavlosky, and today's conversation is one I've been genuinely excited about. My guest today walked away from a high-earning career on Wall Street, not because things were easy, but because he knew the greatest fulfillment in life wasn't going to come from accumulating assets. Adam Miles made a bold and deliberate choice to walk away from financial success and redirect everything he had toward a cause that is as urgent as it is inspiring. He is the founder of Refugee Soccer, a nonprofit known legally as Bridges to America, using the world's most popular sport to connect refugees with their new community and build confidence, also to create pathways forward. With 65,000 refugees in Utah alone, and a special focus on young women through the She Belongs program, Adam is providing the impact that doesn't require a foundation or a trust fund. It requires a calling and the courage to answer it. Adam, welcome to the show, my friend.

It's so great to be here, Alan. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Yeah, totally my pleasure. Let's get started. You had a successful run on Wall Street, multiple six figures. Walk us back to the moment that you realized this path wasn't going to be enough for you.

2005, I'm working in the San Francisco office there in California, and I think that year my W-2 said $760,000. And I've never made that much money since then, by the way. But I was like, what the hell? How am I making that much money? And it really caused me to look more deeply inside of who I am and what I'm doing with my life. And it happened to coincide with meeting a gentleman named Joaquin Fiani at a church group. And he had just come from Central African Republic and was trying to find his footing in the United States. We had a conversation that made me really wake up from working hard, raising 4 kids, and go, there's got to be something more here. Financial success is important. I don't begrudge anybody who's had it and who's been able to hang on to it— not like me— and really just realize that there's so much more to life than more, more, more in terms of financial stability and financial success. And it just made me sort of add in this layer of social impact.

Yeah, for sure. You've described moments of real uncertainty on this journey, times when you questioned everything. How did you find clarity and stay committed to the mission during those difficult periods?

Um, you know, I'm getting better at it. I've been doing this for, you know, if you do the math, what is this, 2026? So, you know, that's 20-plus years ago that I first ventured into, into looking outside of myself and looking to see how I could help somebody who had far less than I did, and yet was still a happy human. And I was sort of fascinated by that. And 5, 6 years later, I ended up over in Ghana on a first trip to Africa because I had helped reunite a bunch of families like this gentleman Joachim. And I remember getting to Africa, we were in Ghana with my oldest daughter, and I just was like, wait, why are all these kids smiling and seem so happy? I don't understand. Because I had thought I know better. I think we all know better. But still, you get into this materialistic society in the US or the West, in the developed world, etc., and you're like, well, you're supposed to have X amount of money and this amount of technology in that car, and that's the thing that will make you happy. And so it really just made me think deeply about how are we on the right path towards fulfillment. And I think truly that moment with Joaquim, when I realized that he had been separated from his daughter Fabienne, who was 2 years old at the time, the exact same age as my son Eli, and we were walking away from each other that evening. He was going home to a really rough part of the East Bay in the Bay Area near San Francisco, and I was going home to tuck my little 2-year-old guy in the bed. And this man didn't even know if or when he would ever see his daughter again. And it was just one of those moments that I think we all run across at some point if we're paying even half close to attention, right? We go, oh, I can help. I can do something. I can't do everything, but I can do something. And I think that's something you'll hear me say as we're having this conversation. I think Alan, like, we can all do something. And that's what I remind myself of when I'm going through these uncertain moments, because This journey that I'm on running a social impact company, you know, this is not for everybody. And there are some moments I'm like, what the hell am I actually doing? Because I love the way you put it in the intro. I really have made a bold, some might say foolish, and that's okay, that's their perspective. But I have made a bold and ultimately even now rewarding choice to put myself aside and give. And I don't— God, I hope that doesn't sound like I'm patting myself on the back. I, I'm really not, because the secret is I actually get more out of this that I'm sure I've given to other people, at least emotionally, psychologically. It just fills me with this great energy. So that's, that's how I keep myself going through the uncertain times. And I have them, and I somehow get through them, and then I'm a little bit better for the next one that rolls around.

I mean, you talked about meeting different people along the way. What called you specifically to refugees, and how did Bridges to America get started?

Yeah, um, so I don't know exactly what it is in my upbringing that made me have this really soft spot for refugees, But if you think about it, there's a couple of elements of a refugee. And by the way, there's 65,000 refugees here in Utah, but there's 120 million displaced people around the world, according to the United Nations. About a third of those are actual refugees who have left the country, the war-torn country, famine, whatever it might be, all the different reasons that people just do what any of us would do. They just are seeking safety, you know, some kind of security, some kind of second chance at life. And so there's something about seeing someone like Joaquin, who was just barely learning how to speak English, in an astronaut suit, affluent part of the Bay Area he was commuting into, by the way, and just being like, man, this guy just seems so out of place. And there was just something about that for me, and I wish I could, you know, package it up and bottle it and sell it to somebody, then maybe I could fund the nonprofit by myself. But that perspective had just helped me realize, you know what, we're all the same. Like, yes, we have different backgrounds, and I love the differences because that makes the world really interesting, um, but we're all really just the same. And that perspective has helped me really lean into deeply into working with refugees. And it really just started with Mr. Joaquin, took me to Africa. I've been to Nigeria like 12 times or something like that. I don't know, maybe a couple times too many, I suppose. But I love that country. I love just the craziness of it all. And we did a ton of stuff over there with my daughter's soccer team, with some semi-pros, women team here in Utah. So that's kind of how it all sort of, you know, came to be. Uh, yeah, in 2016, 10 years ago now, which seems crazy to me, 10 years ago, realized I couldn't keep going back and forth to Africa. I was going through a divorce, and I said, but wait, there's a ton of refugees here. Let's do a similar thing using soccer to connect people. Let's do it right here. And that's when Refugee Soccer was started.

Let's get a little bit more granular with Refugee Soccer. For those who haven't heard of it, paint us a picture of what the organization actually does.

Sure. So based on the 10 years or so in Africa, I mean, using soccer to connect with kids— I mean, we literally, you know, I took my daughter's team, she was 14 at the time, I think we went to Nigeria for this big trip and we took a team. So a bunch of, you know, white Christian girls going into Nigeria, 4 hours deep into the country, and to watch these young women that we brought over, including my daughter, connect with these kids and don't speak the same language, but they spoke the language of soccer. And to watch them do that was incredibly powerful. And I saw the benefit that it was to my daughter and to these kids and the parents and the adults, the chaperones, the coaches that were on with with us and to me. And I was like, this is, this is like fun. Like, yeah, it's hard and all that and sort of gritty, you know, whatever, where we were. But it was like, this is incredibly fun. And so it brought back that basic idea of using soccer to connect people, which by the way, you know, it's not really a unique thing. I didn't invent soccer. I didn't invent using sport to connect people, but leaned into it hard. And so the idea around Refugee Soccer is in Utah, which is where we're starting, which we have our biggest footprint for now, using soccer to connect the refugee and the non-refugee community together. It's human nature to stick with what we know, Alan, right? People speak the same language, eat the same food, maybe they have the same values and this and that, but we cordon off not just other humans but opportunities to grow ourselves. If we don't have someone sort of very kindly and just organically challenging what we think and our perspective of the world, Like, okay, so we're just gonna live in an echo chamber for the rest of our lives. And that's, you know, that's one way to do it, but we're missing out on huge opportunities to grow, not just individually, but within our groups and our communities. And communities are what make up countries. Countries make up the world. And all of a sudden, if you start one by one by one, you know, you can move the needle. It takes forever. It's a lot of work, but it's a fun, fulfilling journey on the way.

Yeah, I mean, we're seeing the impact of soccer or football worldwide right now, especially with the World Cup being here in North America. You're seeing how much it brings people together and how people cross those bridges to become more in tune with each other. So I think it's really a natural fit because we're seeing that firsthand right now with the World Cup.

I couldn't love more where we are in terms of as an organization with the tailwinds that we have. And we'll talk about She Belongs in a few minutes, I'm sure. But, but starting off with the Women's World Cup back in '23, now we've got the Men's World Cup here in the United States that's going better than I thought it would, honestly, just given everything happening in the macro environment around immigration and this and that, and there's pockets of despair or whatever, but it's a really bonding event and it's just special. And then next year is the Women's World Cup in Brazil, and then LA '28 when soccer is a big part of the Olympics. And then, uh-huh, it's like the Women's World Cup will be held in North America back again in 2031. So listen, I've always said I'm way luckier than I am smart, and I'll own that all day, but we've got a really nice sort of 5-year trajectory of a lot of really confluence of a lot of cool factors that should enable us to reach more people and do that connecting that I'm talking about.

Yeah, it's a great tailwind, as you said.

Yeah, good.

Well, let's talk about She Belongs. You mentioned it a moment ago. Tell us about the program. Where did it come from? What kind of transformation are you witnessing with young women?

You know, listen, this is, this is like, I love this so much, that She Belongs. And within Refugee Soccer, just naturally, we ended up working with a heck of a lot more boys than we did girls. And we didn't try to one way or the other, but in the wake the last Men's World Cup in Qatar in the winter, basically, or December of 2022, I was pondering again this sort of like this great, this phenomenon of the World Cup and how it does bring people together. And I thought, and I should tell you, I, I'm a lucky, lucky man. I have 4 children and I have now 7 grandchildren and 3 of those children are girls and 6 of those grandchildren are granddaughters. So our family tree is just full of females and I could not be happier about that. At the same time, I'm like, wait a second, we're not doing enough for girls in refugee soccer. And I'm going through, I'm riding shotgun like many parents do in the lives of their teenagers, mostly teenage daughters, and I'm like, oh my God, like, I've seen things. I've seen so many things that were just, that were awful, honestly, and disturbing and hard and dramatic and fun and all that. But I just realized we just weren't doing enough for girls. And so the idea to connect back to where she belongs around refugees, around immigrants really, and around kids that just are excluded. Came to me, that's why I said it was January, maybe early February of 2023, like, Women's World Cup, why don't we do something crazy and let's see if we can get a team of part refugee, part non-refugee girls to the World Cup. And, uh, 4 and a half months later, not a whole lot of sleep, a couple hundred thousand dollars, we were about 40 of us were on planes to New Zealand. It's been almost exactly 3 years ago now. We went via Japan. It's a 16-day journey. We actually made a documentary film about it. It's a feature-length film. People can stream it online and all of that. And we've done a bunch of screenings around the country and it's just super exciting. The whole idea is this, that we, we have an opportunity. I personally, as a straight white male, have an opportunity to use privilege that I didn't ask for. I don't begrudge. I'm not ashamed of who I am as a straight white guy. Like, I'm great, right? But I realized that people who look like me generally run the world. And I'm not so sure we're running the world in a way— I know we're not running the world in a way, let me restate that. I know we're not running the world in a way that is fair to girls and to women. And so the idea around She Belongs is to use soccer to connect your refugee/non-refugee girls where both sides are benefiting tremendously from the connectivity with each other. And the confidence-building opportunities that we create. It's not just going to the Women's World Cup in New Zealand or Madrid, Spain, like we did last year. I'm making a film about that too, by the way. It's going to be amazing. But it's about, you know, the day-to-day interactions with one another. It's about being bold. It's about stepping out of your comfort zone and doing things you wouldn't otherwise do, and that creates confidence. And last thing I'll say on this piece is, is when you When you can help create, just have a tiny little part, maybe a big part for some girls, you create a woman down the road who is bet making even better decisions for themselves and confronting the things that life will throw at them in a way with poise, with grace, with wisdom. And that makes the world a better place for not just for women, but for the people that love those women in the communities that have those women in them. And that's the whole beautiful part about belongs.

Yeah. Wow. I mean, you and I both believe in doing good and doing well. I wrote a book called Wealth with Purpose, speaks about that exact issue. That impact though requires financial sustainability. How do you navigate that inside the nonprofit structure?

So I will just say that I've tried really hard to bring in business principles into running a nonprofit. I think there's a general stigma around nonprofit, the nonprofit nonprofit model. We're still a business. We just have a different tax category, right? Um, it really is— I don't ever want to just ask somebody for money. I mean, I will, and I— God knows I have. There's plenty of people who will tell you, oh my God, this guy's relentless. Um, but when it benefits these young ladies who I represent in refugee soccer, and these young men as well, you know, I'm happy to be their advocate. But I, I never want somebody who gets involved with us, whether it's a $10 donor a $90 a year, you know, sponsor of one of our refugee girls within She Belongs, or someone who's putting $5,000, $10,000 into the company to help fund the film or set up a She Belongs squad in Madison, Wisconsin, for example, where I just was 2 days ago, or in Boston where we'll be next month. Like, I want you to get something out of that, right? And there really is sort of this value proposition. So that's why we made the— I mean, it's one of the reasons we made the film. That's one of the reasons that we sell, you know, a collab jersey that we have with Hope Solo, for example. Like, let's be creative. Like, this should be fun, right? It's not just, "Will you help our poor little nonprofit because girls aren't treated right?" Like, all that's true, but let's find a different way to do that so that it becomes sustainable. You find a way to get some energy and some buzz, and people are like, "I'm in. Who do I make the check out to?" Or also, "How can I get involved?" It's not always about money, Alan. Sometimes it's just about making a right introduction or volunteering with us or going on a trip. Like, it's all those ways that people can get involved and I as the leader of this have got to be, you know, aware and be bold and be as innovative as I can be to make sure we're not missing an opportunity because I didn't ask right or someone doesn't really get it. All right, well, let's iterate. Let's see what do we need to do to get it right? Because I know what we're doing is right. It is urgent. There is a massive need for what we're doing. And if I don't figure that out, you know, on a particular day or over the long term, then, you know, I should be doing something else. Else, but I don't want to do anything else. Like, I love this so much, so I'm gonna keep doing it. We're gonna figure it out.

Yeah. So let me ask you this: what surprised you most about the intersection of soccer and social impact, and where do you see the biggest untapped opportunity?

I think, like, I played soccer until I was 14 years old. I'm so old that we didn't have high school soccer. I was on a really good team, Iowa's claim, and I know you're in California, Alan, but third best team in California in 1980. Like, 2, I think it was, the Walnut Creek Rockets. And I still love those guys, we still have a little thread on WhatsApp. And so what surprised— as much as into soccer as I was, I ended up playing the other football, American football, in high school. And man, so I sort of kind of forgot or wasn't as aware. And I grew up in America, so, you know, soccer's not— it hasn't been one of the top 3 sports for a long time. I think we just eclipsed baseball. Sorry, baseball. But what I— what surprised me was I was like, whoa, like the rest of the world is crazy about football. And when you see just how organically, easily people connect through soccer, I'm like, well, that's all I'm trying to do. I mean, way before I started Refugee Soccer or called it that, you know, the name of the nonprofit was Bridges to America because we were bringing people over. And so you can get rid of the to America part, you know, I suppose, but the bridges piece, it's bridging humans together through soccer. It's just been this beautiful thing to witness and see and experience.

Yeah. You talked about having 4 kids and 7 grandchildren, 6 of them girls. How does thinking about the world you're leaving them change how you show up for this work?

So I get emotional just thinking about answering that question, but I love it. It's a good one. I, when we do our in-person screenings, I have a little spiel I give at the very beginning just to set the mood for everybody. And, and I'll say, I'll share here what I say in those, and it's Basically, the older I get, all I want is for my daughters and their daughters and my grandson, who I love dearly, and my son I love dearly too, by the way. This is not something to exclude them. But all I want is for my girls and their girls and frankly all girls to have more safety, to have more health, and to have more opportunity to be whatever they want to be, however they want to define success. They should be able to do that. Like, hopefully no one listening to this disagrees with me. I mean, this is— this feels like I shouldn't even have to say it. And yet statistics show that we're missing the boat on that. And for me, maybe we'll talk about legacy a little bit more, but my legacy is not my name on some park bench or some soccer field somewhere in the future. Like, like, if my legacy isn't lived right now, then what the hell am I doing?. And I want my daughters and my granddaughters to see, it's not about how great they call me Gigi, or I really don't care about that, but I want them to see the needle moving and maybe they get inspired and they try a little bit harder. They take a different tack in life. And that's, so for me, like, this is incredibly personal. And I just, let me just add one more quick thing.

Of course.

One of the things that I sort of explored, cuz I've asked myself why a lot, like, why am I doing this? You know, I don't ask it so much anymore. I know why I'm doing it, but in the formative years of all this. And I was reminded of the statistic recently, but one, according to the World Health Organization or the UN or whatever, one in three girls or women, I should say, experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime. And I can tell you, as the father of three girls, that's very true. I don't need someone to— I don't need a stat. I don't need to go look it up. Like, I know that's true because that's my lived experience and my family's lived experience. And so it's a beautiful thing to be able to push forward with She Belongs. I don't ever really talk about that very much, honestly, except maybe in these kind of conversations, just you and me, right? No one else is listening? Okay, good.

Yeah, nobody listens at all.

Okay, good. Um, I'm teasing, but you know, I'm happy to share it because I know I'm not alone. And so the idea is if we can do something to help prevent that in the future, or help those girls who become women who have gone through this. And in the U.S., something that was— that popped up on the internet I was looking at today: 1 in 2 women face unwanted sexual advances in their life. Half, half of the women walking in this country face that. And I'm pretty sure everybody listening knows that either that's happened to them or they know somebody it has happened to, right?

I'm not so sure that's not an underestimate.

Yeah, right. That's what people that reported, right? Thank you for saying that. Exactly. So very comfortable in the veracity of that number, but I'm very uncomfortable that this is even happening in 2026. Right, right. So I don't remember what your question was, but, uh, at this point, but, but hopefully that helps you see why She Belongs means so much to me. And, oh, the untapped— it was social impact in soccer. And the untapped potential here is to really use soccer as the way to connect people that want a better life for themselves, want a better community where they live. I think the upside is just unlimited. That's why I'm super excited about the next 5 years, and hopefully I'll do this for the next— I can't say 50, I'm a little too old to say 50 years, but whatever— in the next couple decades to make the very most of what we're building here and what plenty of other great organizations are doing to use soccer to help create social good in the world today.

Yeah, for sure. You know, speaking of legacy and speaking of Refugee Soccer and She Belongs, what's the next chapter look like and what are you building toward?

Yeah, so I mentioned, you know, bringing sort of a business mindset to what we're doing here. And so it's funny, we took the first trip And it happened in such a short amount of time. I was like, all I really knew I wanted— I knew there was something special. I didn't realize how special it would be until we got back and I started hearing the anecdotal stories from families and from the girls and realized, you know, we're on to something here. And people are like, what are we doing next? And I'm like, oh, we're doing— oh yeah, okay, uh, let's figure that out. And so I put together a business plan, I guess it was last year, you know, or so. And the idea is to take the next 10 years and use these next 5 years of focused the serendipity—

Tailwinds, if you will.

Yeah, the tailwinds, exactly. And use those to really move towards, towards having 100,000 young ladies active in She Belongs programs. We call them squads across the world. I want to get to 10,000 by the time— in the next 5 years, you know. And I know once we get to 1,000, getting to 2,000 or 3,000 or 4,000 will not be hard. And so it is a lot of operational stuff infrastructure, etc. And so that's really what I'm trying to focus in on while doing all the really fun, cool things we get to do that just light me up, that stoke the energy of so many people that get to be involved in that, and they see the great potential of what we're building. But that's what it looks like for the next, you know, 5 to 10 years in a nutshell.

That's fantastic. Well, for anyone listening who wants to get involved or support the work, what's the best way to find you?

So I would go to shebelongs.org. RefugeeSoccer.org is another location, but I think SheBelongs.org is really where we have the most active opportunities to engage. We're on Instagram, which I don't love social media, but also it's kind of a necessary, you know, I love it, I hate it, but She Belongs Global is our Instagram handle. You get a lot of great snippets of what we're doing. You can check out our film there. As I said, film number 2, we're in production right now. We'll release it after the Men's World Cup and ahead of the Women's World Cup. That's the best place to find us. I love LinkedIn. Find me on LinkedIn fairly easily. You know, as well, there'll probably be a link on the podcast in the show notes or whatever, but I'm not that hard of a guy to find, and I love being found. Alan, Alan, I didn't know you a week and a half ago, and here we are having a fun chat.

So, uh, yeah, for sure.

Was there anything else in your— to your question that I—

no, you answered it perfectly. Just a way for people to get involved if they want to take action, and I think you answered that perfectly.

Sorry, let me nail that down a little bit more. You can find us at shebelongs.org or on Instagram. But here's the deal. So I really feel like from a legacy standpoint— and I was in wealth management for 20 years, we didn't talk about that, which is great. I enjoyed my time and I learned a lot. And I feel like one of the things I learned in Africa actually applies to what we're doing today. And having been to Africa, I was like, first thing was the line between dead and alive is very thin. That was the first thing I learned. That's not really what applies here, but it was more like it takes so It takes so little to do so much in Africa. And I would revise that and update that to say it takes so little to do so much by using soccer to connect people. I love the number 9 because of Title IX, which people can look up if they don't already know what that is, around women's sports inequality. But a $9 one-time donation, great, like we'll put that to good use. One of the ones I love the most is a $90 a year sponsorship. It doesn't even have to be a refugee girl who wants to be in belongs and be in our programming but just simply can't afford it. Like, I don't check credit, I don't see what kind of car that mom and dad drive. Like, I don't care if you need help. The point is get involved in She Belongs and get in here and do all the cool things that we're doing. If it's hosting a screening of our film, go watch the trailer on shebelongs.org/film, okay? And you'll see the trailer for the second film as well. And, you know, hosting those, it's a $3,500 ask. We make it for the whole community. We're going to be in Boston. I just confirmed again today we'll be at at the Museum of Science, July 16th, at the IMAX theater there. It's called Omni Theater. 300+ people were getting the local NWSL team involved. Like, these are fun. And if I'm a sponsor, if I'm a donor, if I'm like, I want to do good things around soccer, $3,500, I think, is a really reasonable ask, you know, to do that. If you want to help build a team out, it's $10,000 a year. If you want to be a national, you know, sponsor, whatever, let's talk. But the last thing I'll say on this note, and I hope I'm not pitching it too hard here, but truly This comes from much more of an abundance mentality than anything. There is so much joy that comes from people that get involved in this, and you don't have to take my word for it. I'm happy to introduce you to anybody who's been involved, and they're like, "It's life-changing. I love this. I want to do more." Like, these are all the comments, and you know I do, and I'm going to keep doing it. I'm like, let's share some of that joy and that love. Let's worry maybe a teeny bit less about getting more stuff making more money. There's nothing wrong with that, again. But if we're not doing more to make an impact, which is sort of a near-term word for legacy if you ask me, but to make that impact now, like, we got all kinds of opportunities. And I'm nothing if not flexible, and I love a good brainstorming session. Like, let's figure that stuff out and let's change the world. Wherever you are, dear listener, you know, wherever you are, I know there's an opportunity to do something special there.

Yeah. Well, we come to the end of the show, Adam. I want to say this clearly: you are exactly what Legacy All-Stars is built to celebrate, not just you, but your organization. Not because you had it all figured out, but because you chose service over comfort, impact over security, and community over convenience. That's a really important fact. To our listeners, if today's conversation stirred something up in you, and that's the point of this episode and of this show, you don't have to found a nonprofit. You don't have to have a massive platform. You can get off the sidelines, support Refugee Soccer or She Belongs. Or another worthy cause of your choice. Share this episode and ask yourself, what is my version of this? I'm Alan Pavlosky, and this has been another episode of Legacy All-Stars. We'll see you next time.