Andy Neary (Friday Bullpen Sessions, ep. 123) urges listeners to "take ownership of your dreams." He tells Patrick Godfrey's story — a Long Island athlete who chose to pursue Division I football at Clemson despite widespread doubt and earned a roster spot and two national titles — as a motivating example. Neary parallels Patrick's persistence with his own life: pursuing Division I baseball and a brief professional career, then leaving a long insurance-advisor path to build a coaching business. The episode argues that rejecting others' expectations, committing fully to your own goals, and taking decisive action produces fulfillment and momentum.
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Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 123. Today I am going to tell you that you need to take ownership of your dreams. Quit living someone else's dream and go after yours. So why am I telling this to you? Well, let me set the stage here. If you are a dedicated Bullpen Sessions podcast listener number one, thank you. Thank you for taking the time each and every week to listen. But if you are an avid listener, you'll recall a couple of weeks ago, I interviewed a young man named Patrick Godfrey. And if you don't know Patrick's story, it's a really cool story. He grew up on Long island and he grew up playing lacrosse in football. And if you know anything about that area of the country, lacrosse, that's a hotbed for the sport of lacrosse. Football, not so much. And so one, Patrick had a choice. Play lacrosse. Play football. He really wanted to pursue football, and he wanted to pursue it at the collegiate level. Now, heading into his senior year of high school, he had offers from Division 1, AA or FCS schools like Bryant University and Lafayette, but he really had no division, division, major Division one offers. But he wasn't satisfied. He wanted to play major Division 1 football, but he had his family, his friends, parents of his friends, his coaches, teachers, all saying, patrick, you're crazy.
Just go play at Bryant, go play at an Ivy League school, go play at Lafayette and just enjoy playing football. But Patrick wasn't. Wasn't satisfied. In fact, he not only wanted to play major Division 1 football, he wanted to go play for the best. He wanted to go play at Clemson.
And his family, his friends, his coaches were saying, patrick, what are you doing? Are you nuts? Why are you thinking you're going to go play at Clemson? Just go play it. Lafayette, Bryant. But he kept pursuing it. He kept pursuing that dream of playing major Division 1 football. So he goes down to Clemson, he gets a tryout. Now, he wasn't on scholarship. He gets a tryout with a hundred other football players, all vying for four spots.
And because of his hard work, his discipline, his consistency, he ends up getting one of those four spots. Now, if you listen to the podcast, you. You know about how his journey at Clemson University ended. He spent most of his career on special teams, but in a four year span between 2015 and 2018, he got to participate in three national title games and win two of them. In fact, the day I was interviewing Patrick, he had one of his national title rings on his ring finger. And When I asked him why he pursued playing at a school like Clemson, when he knew he, he may not get a ton of playing time and he could have just gone to Lafayette or Bryant or an Ivy League school and played right away, he said, I had a dream and I took 100% owner of it, ownership of it, and I had everybody telling me I was crazy for even thinking about doing it. But I did it and I went after it and I got it. And that's the lesson that when he said that, it sent shivers down my spine. Because I think about all the times in my life, early in my career, especially as a young kid and early business career, I was living other people's dreams. I was pursuing, hell, I probably pursued a finance degree in college because somebody told me that's the route I should go.
I probably pursued my first job as a financial planner because somebody told me that's what I should do.
And I look at all the places in my life where I was living somebody else's dream for so long.
But I wasn't living my own.
And I think about moments in my life where I did go after it. And I had many doubters, many people telling me, I don't know if that's the right route for you. Started in my high school career playing baseball. I've, I've shared the story multiple times. Going into my senior year, like Patrick, I only had one offer. It was to win an own State University Division 2 baseball program in, in Minnesota.
But I wanted to play Division 1 baseball. Now. I knew realistically I wasn't going to go to a school like LSU or Wichita State or Florida State. I was gonna have to go more at the mid major level and I earned that ability. I earned that opportunity to go play at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, when I probably had some people telling me that they didn't think I was going to play very much there. And after that four year career was done, I earned the opportunity to pitch for two years, a couple years in the Milwaukee brewers organization.
I pursued a dream. I went after it. Even though some people told me that probably didn't have that chance. I did. I went after it and I got it.
And now fast forward, I think about my journey into this coaching business I have today. Trust me, when you've been a health insurance Advisor for, for 14, 15 years.
In the insurance industry, what happens is the normal routine is you build a large book of business and then over time, that residual income coming from that large book of business creates a hell of a living for you. Right. And as long as you sit on that book of business, you can make a damn good living living.
At least that's what they tell everybody when you get in the industry. But that wasn't my dream.
You see, in the back of my head, I've always had this dream of coaching. I think it's in my blood. My dad is a fantastic coach. He was a hall of fame high school baseball coach in the state of Wisconsin. Hell, the man was even a hell of a wrestling coach. And he didn't wrestle a minute in his life. But he was just a good coach. Even though my mom didn't coach, she was also a good mentor, a good coach. For me, I think coaching, and they're both teachers, so teaching is probably in my blood as well.
And when I earned the chance to start coaching some of my peers three years ago, I realized there's something here. This is something that comes naturally to me. Even though I've had a successful career in the insurance industry, could I say selling comes natural to me? No, not really. But this coaching thing, helping people out, teaching them, this comes really natural to me. And in that moment, I had a dream. I had a dream of building a coaching business.
But just like Patrick, when his family, his friends, his coaches were telling him he was crazy, the moment I went all in on my coaching business, I also had those doubters, I had those advisors in the insurance industry saying, like, you're not selling insurance anymore. Why not? Are you crazy? Like you don't want to be an adviser anymore? I, I don't get that. Why would you want to pursue a coaching business when it comes with a lot of uncertainty, a lot of doubt, you kind of are starting over. Why would you want to do that? Heck, I probably even heard that from my family. Like, really? You're going to go out on your own? Everything okay? But I knew I had a dream.
I knew I had this.
Opportunity to live out what I felt like was my full potential.
And I feel like the moment everything changed. And I didn't think about it this way until I heard Patrick say this a couple weeks ago. The moment I took ownership of that dream is when everything changed for me. It's when the coaching business became a reality. It's when the coaching business started blossoming. And it's where I am today, sitting here as we head into the summer of 20, 20, 21, with a coaching business I am damn proud of and a coaching business that's about to turn into a full blown consulting agency.
Because I took ownership of that dream. Of that dream of, you know, selling insurance no longer lights me up. But coaching is something that comes to me naturally, and it allows me to make the biggest impact to the most amount of people I can.
And so that's the advice I want to pass on to you today, is whether you're 18 years old, playing a sport maybe you really don't like because mom and dad told you you should, or you're 30 or 40 years old and you're in a career that, honestly, you really don't like, but somebody told you that that's what you should do. I'm here to tell you it is time to take ownership of your dream, quit living somebody else's.
And it's never too late to go chasing that dream. Even if you're sitting there right now and you're 55 years old and you're like, dude, I only got 10 years left before I retire.
Why not make those 10 years the best 10 years you've ever had? Why not make those 10 years. The years you went after your dream, you felt the most alive. You felt like the best version of you versus sitting in that job, that career that you have that might make good money, but, you know, it doesn't bring you any happiness or joy anymore. And the moment you take ownership of that dream, whatever that dream might be for you, the moment you take ownership of it and you stop listening to all that outside noise of all those other people who are pressing their fears, their doubts, their uncertainties on you, the moment you shut that out and you go after your dream and you own it. And you're gonna take it on until you go down in a flaming ball of hell.
A flaming disaster. But you're just going to give it your all, no matter what, is the day everything will change for you. That's the moment you will be sitting there going, oh, my Lord, I did not know this was. This was I was able to create this again. Whether that's a business, whether that's an entire change in your career, whether that's like Patrick chasing that dream to play in Death Valley in Clemson, South Carolina, every Saturday.
Own the shit out of that dream and quit living someone else's, that's all I got for you today. Because you know what happens when you chase that dream, when you know what it is you want to do. But for whatever reason, you've been holding back from going out and getting it, the moment you let that go and you go, I'm going to own this. I am going to do whatever it takes to go get it is the moment you wake up is the moment you feel alive. And when you feel alive and you have that clarity and you have that confidence, you know what happens next. Massive action happens next. So go make it happen today. Take ownership of that dream and just go get it.
