216. Let Shift Happen: Upgrade The Way You Operate Your Life with Anthony Trucks

It's not about in any way being good at the sport. It's where my kids, I want them to be good. I don't care if they're good, though. If my son does well, great. I want him to do well for him. I want him to be proud of himself because it's all going to end someday. And at that point we have to have the skill sets to continue to do what it took to get great at sports. All these things you learn in sports, if you can't then turn them and face them outward, you will fall on your face even if you're good at the sport. Foreign.

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Bullpen Sessions podcast. I am more than excited today to have this guest on Anthony Trucks was, I believe, my third interview before I even had a true podcast. I, I did these as pure YouTube channel video interviews. And I have, I have the honor to have Anthony back on here for episode 216. Anthony Trucks. If you don't know who he is, I'd be sur. But if you do, if you don't know who he is, Anthony Trucks is, has an amazing story. Former college superstar on the football field, NFL athlete, now turned identity shift coach, which we're going to talk about. And his life is all about making identity shifts. And that's something I want to talk about today because athletes, as a former athlete, it's hard to make that identity shift sometimes from the athletic field to the, to the business field. So, Anthony, without further ado, man, thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast.

Hey, man, happy to be here and hang out with you, dude. You're a good guy and I always like hanging out with good guys, so no complaints there.

Well, I appreciate this.

So let's just start at the beginning. I know we talked about this on our first interview a couple years ago, but, you know, for the folks who do not know you before we see the Anthony Trucks at Oregon University, Anthony Trucks in the NFL, talk about your, your childhood because again, we're going to talk about a lot of identity shifts in your life. Yeah, let's, let's talk about what life was like at an early age for you.

Sucked, man. It sucked. No, I think that's what we're talking, right? It's, let's go back back in the time. You know, there's, there's a window where I was given away as a kid, man, and it kind of, it sucks because in your foundation of who you are and you, your building of your identity is rooted in the, the start out of I suck, I'm not good enough to be loved by my own mom, my own family. And so you venture off into this world that is not very kind, especially in the foster care world that is kind of reiterating to you every day that you're not good by beating, starving, torture, that kind of stuff. And so I had this situation where I did have, you know, this mom was floating around, but her desire to kind of be at peace and free in her own life left her four kids, me as the oldest, kind of out to fend for ourselves and the journey of the world. And so it was kind of an interesting dynamic of the building of my dent in the beginning was not a good one. And so for a lot of years I bounced around from home to home in different houses. I was, you know, put in chicken coops, forced to chase chickens to earn meals, putting shopping carts, pushed down hills towards traffic, forced to lick the bottom of people's shoes, like real heinous stuff. And then at six years old, ended up in my now forever family as the only black person, A really poor, all white family. So identity for me was never this thing that had an anchoring anywhere. I didn't know who I was, where I fit, where I should be, where I should go. And it kind of sucked in that manner, man. So I had a lot of, a lot of craziness in my childhood that as much as I would say I like, I don't like it, I do appreciate it at this point. I get this painting over here in my studio that says, smooth seas never made skilled sailors. And so while I look back at those, those moments and I go, man, they were tough and I hated them, I do have a depth of appreciation for the grit it created within me to do what I do in my life.

Now that's a really, really good point because when I look back at my childhood, you know, I actually want to write a book about what it was life to live a life of. Average. Like I grew up with the, the prototypical average American family. I was the definition of average. I'm five nine, like white male. Like literally everything about me says average. But when I was a childhood, you know, my, my struggle, Anthony, was I was an overweight kid. So I did though I didn't have, you know, the foster home, the battle or that environment or being, you know, a minority in an all white family. For me it was my, my, my weight. And it was something that I got picked on a lot, very uncomfortable dealing with.

As that child, I mean, because a lot of kids run into this today, especially these days when you are in a situation where you feel you're different.

How did that impact you from a, a mental standpoint? Not feeling. Did you have those moments where you just didn't feel like you fit in.

100 as everyday feeling? Man. I was also the ADHD kid who had super bad energy and I was all over the place bothering kids. But yeah, you, you just don't feel like you have a space that's comfortable. What's crazy is I would get in trouble at school because I would act out a lot and I was just, you know, talkative and so I get in trouble at school, at home. My first foster father in that final home, was it drunk. I remember the last image I have in my head of him at the house is him punching my mom in the face while she's on a knee trying to get up. Like this is the area oddly between my house and my elementary school. I would walk to school, which was super unsafe. I would never let my kids do this. There was a tunnel and the tunnel was like serious. It was a bunch of transients. Needles and broken bottles on the ground. Smelled like urine. And I would just. That was the tunnel. I would go back and forth through between school and then under the freeway to my house and, and of all places, that was the one place I felt comfortable. I didn't feel comfortable at the, you know, the, the visitation centers for, you know, when you're supposed to go see your mom and go there for visitations because you're in foster care because you never show up. So I have to watch other kids with their family and my, my, my siblings have a different dad with their dad because he'd show up at school. I get in trouble and homo's in trouble. So the weird place was this urine smelling tunnel that even to this day I have a weird warmth for because that was where I felt like, all right, at least I fit in here. I'm not getting in trouble. There's nobody bothering me. Like I would walk back and forth. I'd pace this tunnel a few times before finally exiting to get where I had to get to. So it's weird but like as I dig into it now, yeah, there was a complete sense of lack of anchorage or placement where I felt like this is my home, this is my place.

That is such an interesting perspective too. Being the one place where you should probably have been most scared out of place you felt most comfortable.

Wow. Also unaware of the people that could probably hurt me at that time. You know, I've, I, at that time, believe me, I've dealt with a lot. I'd been through a lot. So I wasn't worried about the stranger who's over there sleeping in the corner. Like, I've had a lot worse happen than foster homes.

Well, think about that though. It's almost like you look fast forward to being an adult today, an entrepreneur and things like that. Right. It's like there's almost a underlying beauty about not even recognizing the fear that you might be in and just moving forward regardless. And so that, that's so such a good perspective. You know, I want you to share in a little bit. You, there's a quote or something I saw online that you had mentioned about your foster home mother. And it sounded like she battled multiple sclerosis for a while, for a big part of her life. And the lessons she taught you, I definitely want you to get into that because I thought that was so powerful. But let's go back to. Okay. As you're growing up, early on, sports was not a part of your picture.

No.

Again, if you read, if, if someone reads your bio, you talk about the fact that the family you lived with, your whole, your foster, they were not an athletic family. Sports, not a thing.

No. There was obese. They were all out of shape. I was the only guy that used to do sports. And it was like the weird guy like this guy, you out there running around doing stuff. Yeah, it's. My mom had Ms. She was diagnosed with Ms. And it taught me a lot about appreciation of the simple things. But I grew up in a house. Yeah. Where it was not the norm. I don't think my dad played sports. My mom didn't play any sports. No one in my family or my, you know, cousins, aunts, out of them ever went to college. It was very much so use your regular run of the mill family. There was never people that aspired in any way to be great. It was just, hey, this is what we do. We survive. We do odd jobs and make ends meet. And that was, that was my world. So yeah, sports was this thing that wasn't part of it. It's funny, the very first year. So I got adopted at 14. I was, it took eight years to get adopted and I wasn't able to play team sports because my biological mom had what's called parental rights. She could determine what I could and could not do sports wise. So she never let me play. So I got adopted. I could finally play sports. We were so broke as a family that the only Way I was going to play is if I paid for myself. So I had a paper route and I paid my first year of youth football by myself. I spent the money on, on really going and playing and, and so like I was in, I was, I had spent time and hours to earn the ability to make the money to go do this thing. And so yeah, that was, that was how far out of the realm it was. Like no one cared, no one wanted to pay for it. It was going to be happening because I pay for it myself.

And I don't want what you just said to go overlooked. It took eight years for you to find a family for the listener, not.

To find one, but to be adopted. I had bounced around, okay, it was my sixth house with my sixth overall, you know, house I'd been. Took six homes. But yeah, it took 11 years in the system to finally have a home.

That was wow, the forever home for the, the listeners. I want you to. I've heard you talk about these two stats in, in other podcasts. You have bond. And I think the folks who have not ever gone through the experience of being a foster child can't relate to this. The statistics around how many foster home kids end up with drug or alcohol addiction and then how many end up incarcerated. I think the statistics are mind blowing.

So it's funny, I don't know the statistics of, of drug and alcohol unless you know that I've never heard of the statistics of drug or alcohol addictions. I would venture to say they're high. Well, I do know the one for, for prison. If you look at any prison in America, 75% of the inmates have spent time in foster care. So three out of every four inmates have gone the exact same upbringing that I went through. And, and it sucks because the truth is a lot of these people are, they're very. We have great survival skills. I think that the separation that in my opinion leads the criminal aspect to it is I go, well, I have this great skills of gift of gab communication. We're very good manipulators because we had to manipulate situations for safety. I had to analyze people and go, is this person going to help me? They going to hurt me? And I would find ways to get what I wanted because I wasn't going to get given to me. So we learn these tactics then unfortunately we apply them to poor actions. And my thought is a lot of us when we're going through that, we have this disdain for the world. I'm a child, I love my mom, and they get. I Listen to my mom. So her, her thoughts and expressions would lie to me and say, the reason you're in foster care is because this family or the state or society or the judge, right? The reality is it was her fault. But as a kid, you want, you want your mom to love you, so you listen to everything they say. And so she would demonize everybody but herself and the rest of the world. So I think what happens, these kids, they, we get to this point, we age out of the system or, you know, we end up being homeless. And we had this thought of, the world is bad, the world is evil, the world's, the world's the reason I'm like this. And I have these skill sets to do things. I'm going to go do things and I'm. And end up. They eventually get caught and then end up in jail with stealing cars or manipulating people, taking money, because it's just survival skills. And I really think that if, if they were to pause for a moment and realize the amazing superhuman skills we have because of this situation, you could have a ton of people doing some great positive things for the world. I think the only reason why I'm doing what I'm doing is I fell in love with something that, that was positive. I fell in love with football, right. And it gave me this area where I could go in and create this sense of self worth. I think it's also part of it, creating a sense of self worth. And if you're around low life humans because that's kind of what you've been growing up around, or because, you know, you guys all collect together, well, that person's sensationalization is, I robbed this house and I got this, and I robbed this car and I got, you know, they do this. What happens? And so over time that pooling comes together and we get really good at bad things. And so it, unfortunately, I think, is what feeds into the prison system the way we see it.

I didn't intend to ask you this question, and I hope I'm not too far off base. Did you, do you ever. Are there times where you ever catch yourself thinking, had you, had you not found your adopted family, what life would be like for you today?

Sometimes. Sometimes, man, it's extrapolation could be crazy. What if I got, you know, pinned to a different house, you know, because it was just a matter of checking boxes and that was the one that was in the box. You know, I would never met my wife, I wouldn't have my kids, I wouldn't live in this town. It Just is a ton of those critical, serendipitous moments in life. I don't know, because I think for me, I'm gonna be dead honest too. This is funny. I'm gonna say this. In real life, I think that had I not. Had I not gone through. I've always had this mentality. I've always been this mind. I was shaped in different manners by different people, but I could have always, in my. In my head, always went the direction of being like a spy. Sounds super odd, bro, but I think my skill sets to. I have a stature. I can communicate well and speak properly. I have the way of analyzing and processing things. I have a. I have a sharp brain. I think I could have been a really good spy. So, like, I watch these movies of like, James Bond doing his stuff and, you know, born Identity, and I'm like, I really. In a different world, like a different universe, I might be like some. Some crazy cool spy. I don't know. That's my.

Well, let's. Let's just say if this identity shift coaching thing doesn't work, which has been doing beautifully for you, you've got a second career.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm too known. I couldn't get. I couldn't slide by. But I mean, I'm obviously way off. I'm not naive in a sense that really do this stuff. But as a human. The human traits I have, I could see transferring to that properly.

Well, let's. Let's dive into chapter two, which is the start of your football career. And your start was very different than others. Right. In a world today, especially with kids playing on travel teams, and if you want to be excel at a certain sport, you're starting at it on an early age and committing just to that sport. You didn't jump into football until your teenage years.

True. Yeah, I didn't.

What was that like? What was that like? You're in Antioch, California, right?

Yep.

What was that like coming onto the football field for the first time? I think we said age 14.

Yes, 14. When I first played where somebody.

A lot of these kids have probably been playing already. Did you. What did that. What was that like, the first time you stepped out on a football field?

I suck, man. I got. I got beat up a lot. I was not a good football player. I think there's this mentality that people have, like, oh, if you played in the NFL, you must have, you know, I've been great from day one. A savant, some, you know, amazing. Nah, that wasn't the case. I sucked for the first two years of my football career. And to be honest, it's because when I go out there, like I don't have the skills developed if I'm playing recess. Yeah, I can go and jump around and catch a football when I'm, you know, out of recess. But it's different when a helmet on, shoulder pads on, like running around and you don't have the confidence, you know, and these kids are out there, they're trying to hit you. That's just what tackle football is, is tackling. And so yeah, you have to find a way to dig into some part of your soul to stick in. I, I didn't have this quit mentality thankfully. And so when it did get hard, I was still find ways to lean in. I just got angry. I think there was, there wasn't an anger because of the situation. I think it's an assumption that, oh, you went through that so you were taking out anger, right? I don't think that was part of it. I did have this pent up aggression that I enjoyed releasing in that manner. But it wasn't like I was anchoring this moment of this guy did this to me. I'm going to get some get back on this kid. It was just, I had the aggression the way anybody has it and it was praised. That was the thing. I wouldn't be great, but there's moments of flashes of, you know, some good stuff and then we get praise and like, oh man, I've never had outside world besides my family praise me in this manner. You want me to run around like this? You want me to go, you like it when I hit this person? People clap for me when I let's do this, you know. And so I think the addiction for me came from the outside. Praise from the world. For the first time in my entire life, I never had had the world go, we celebrate you.

Yeah, I again that hits home for me because.

Look, thinking about my, my childhood, Anthony, you know, again being an overweight kid, I tried to hide from attention because often it was negative attention. But there was one place that I always felt at home and that was on the pitcher's mound.

I get it, totally get it.

And so what advice? I'd love to know your thoughts on this because so much has changed in the world of sports and youth sports because your career didn't start right away early as a young child. What advice would you give parents today who may have that kid who hasn't tried or played a sport yet at age 10, 12, 13 and they're they're already thinking it's too late. What advice would you give that family?

Emily's not too late. And it's not going to be good. And that's going to be life. And if you want your kid to be good in life, you better teach them how to do the things that are. That are like that journey. Because they're going to try a bunch of stuff, girlfriends, jobs, a bunch of different things, and they're going to suck at them. But if they can't learn how to suck and then stay in that pocket till they get great at it, they're going to have a horrible life. My son right now, I have a youngest son who's 13. My oldest is in college. He's a freshman, sorry, in University of Oregon, running track. And the main things I'm trying to get them to understand is just how to do hard work. It's frequently a conversation in my household about the. The separation, I believe, between success or lack of success, joy or lack of joy is it's, can you do hard things? Because you can tie it to the success in life of can I do the hard thing of focusing day, staying consistent, staying disciplined when everybody else would want to quit? You can also tie it to, I'm in a relationship and I hate the relationship and I'm not happy in it. But you can't do the hard thing of leaving it or speaking your mind or holding your ground. And so I think sports is an amazing microcosm of the world. It's this, this little environment where you're forced to be subjected to pain, physical and mental and emotional at times, how to navigate those moments properly or in ways that benefit you, not shut down completely. How to take feedback without it being said that breaks your soul. How to communicate with other people, how to work with other people, like all these little things that it's not about in any way being good at the sport. It sounds odd, like I don't. It's where my kids, I want them to be good. I don't care if they're good, though. I don't have to live vicariously through my children. I've done my sports thing. My wife does her thing. If my son does well, great. I want him to do well for him. I want him to be proud of himself. Because it's all going to end someday. The sports is all going to stop and come to a screeching halt. And at that point we have to have the skill sets to continue to do what it took to get great at sports, which was have communication with people, take feedback, do hard things. All these things you learn in sports, if you can't then turn them and face them outward, you will fall on your face, even if you're good at the sport.

That's exactly why this podcast exists, man, because sports teaches us so much about business and life, the lessons we learn. Now, I heard a crazy story. Correct me if I'm wrong on this. All right, so your son is running track at Oregon. And for the folks who may not be all too familiar with NCAA track, that's no joke. I mean, when you talk about the blue blood track organizations, Oregon's at the top.

It is track time usa, man.

Did I hear a story that you found out your wife actually has some eligibility left and. And you have this crazy idea to have run at at Oregon?

My idea. That wasn't my idea. Don't. Hold on.

But no, yeah, she. She didn't. So we had our son sophomore year in college at the University of Oregon. We both were there. I was playing football. She was in high school, the senior athlete of the year. So she's an athlete. Ran, you know, track, did soccer, softball, but we went to college. She just stopped playing sports altogether. Completely stopped. Had her son. And then, you know, a certain point in time, through her journey, she got into master's Track. When you're 35 and above, so 35 years old, we found out, like, you can go do old people track. It's the best way to say it. All the way up until you're whatever age, 100 something years old, you can run. In the same process, a discussion popped up because we were getting our son some training for tracking, and we're like, you know, finding out that if your, your sports clock never started in college, you can do sports because it's different than starting and doing school. So she's already has her masters and she's like, all right, well, I'm gonna go and do tracks. There's a local junior college nearby and they have a decent track team. And so she, for the last two years, her second year, now she's going to start her second year of track. Last year, her technically freshman year, went to the state meet, took like second and third across the board. And everything she did, smoking these kids that are like 20 years younger. And technically, if she wanted to, she could go and run track with her son at the Division 1 level because she's got times that are quality enough to get her in to go run there. So weird dynamic, dude.

That is. That is the, the epic example of age does not matter. That is. That is awesome. Let's talk about your football career. So you had a successful high school career. You now find yourself on scholarship at the University of Oregon now. Well, we will mention for the folks who love college football, this was before the fancy uniforms.

Way before when we get. I wasn't worried about them socks and them gloves, dog. Yeah, but it was a good time.

When did you realize, you know, you're playing big time power five football in the Pac 10. At that time, I don't think it was quite the PAC12 yet.

All PAC10 honors. In fact, you're still on the. The career record boards at University Oregon for sack and things like that. What did you realize the NFL might be an opportunity?

I don't know. It's funny as you say, the whole power five, I don't even know. I had no idea the, the brevity of what I was getting into because when I get. I was the only athlete of my family. Nobody knew when I was looking at colleges. My mom and dad didn't even help. They loved me, but they were like, we don't anything about this. So like let us know what you choose. So I'm out here running the whole recruiting gamut by myself. A little 18 year old kid navigating stuff, doing, you know, God knows, trying to figure out to find the best fit for myself. And it was very transparent that I was gonna have to do it on my own. But I kind of been doing that for the longest time and then I get to the level of college and I get there and even then I'm not. You're not really aware of the depth and how much money and that goes into it. It's just like it's football and there's school involved, you know. So I go up there because no one around my world had really outlined it for me. Like he, no one in my, literally in my world at all was explained like you're going to a, a program that is this next step to the NFL. So I get there and, and all I do, I know how to lean into things, man. I just know how to say I want this and then lean in. And so it wasn't probably until my junior year that like anchoring all of a sudden it hit like, hey dude, you could play in the NFL. Like that was a weird, it was a weird moment. Like, do you know that? Like I didn't know I could do that. And my coach one point is like, well, just, you know, most people that come here, they're Coming here because they want to play in the NFL. And if you're not trying to play in the NFL, this might not have been the school for you. And I go, no, it's not the case. I'm balling. Don't get that twisted. I just didn't know that the balling could lead to me balling in the league, you know, so it was like my junior year where I was like, oh damn, like there's a possibility I could play at the highest level in the world for this sport. And, and yeah, a little bit more came out of me, a little more, you know, folks, attention to detail and I turned it on. So yeah, my senior year in the Pac 10, I led the Pac 10 in sacks, tax for loss, force fumbles, fumbles recovered, and I was like sixth in total tackles. But I missed an entire football game in the season because my at a high ankle sprain against usc. But yeah, brought a bald man. But that the league came in the framing, not until my junior year.

Well, you know, again, so much, so many memories you're bringing back for me because I remember my senior year at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. I, I hon Anthony didn't think I had a shot at playing major league baseball, getting drafted. But I remember in, in one of my bullpen sessions with our pitching coach mid mid season senior year, he just casually said to me, said hey man, you keep having the year you're having, you're probably going to get drafted at the end of the year. And I just remember when he said that, all of a sudden like it all clicked. It was like, holy cow. Like, yeah, this is a chance, this is an opportunity. And, and so thank you for sharing that because, because like I said, I remember that moment.

So let's talk about your NFL career. You know, you spent time with the Buccaneers, the Steelers and the Redskins. Unfortunately, the career ended with a career ending injury. What was that time like? You know, for people who may not have a perspective of pro sports, what was it like playing college ball in Eugene, Oregon and now here you find yourself in the NFL?

Yeah, it was, you know, it's, it's a step, but it's not as bad as most people would think. I think that the step from high school to college is worse than college, that approach. And, and I know some people will push back on that because they go, oh, the pro is the highest level. I go, yeah, but it depends on what level you were at prior to getting there. You got to realize I was playing Reggie Bush and Matt Leinert. I was Running my last game of my college career, I got this big whale trophy you see right here, because we were. I was against Adrian Peterson, you know, so it's like I'm. I'm against those guys. When you're in high school, there's so many high schools, they're all spread out, and so you may play local guys, but of the local guys, one, maybe two that are, you know, going to go to the level that I went to, so I wasn't really around that. So it was a. It was a shock. I'm like, oh, I got to learn a true defense and I got to. I got to prepare them. I can't miss. Ever miss a practice. And I got to be dialed in the school. That. The stringent aspect from high school to that was a big climb. And so going into that, I think there was a bigger climb for me to get adjusted to the speed and the tempo of the game of college level, at that level, Division one, college level. But then I think that the difference. What took place from college that are pros was everybody is a phenomenal athlete. Everybody. They're fast, they're. They're the best of the best. They've all done that. They're. They're gritty. They got families. You got. When you're in college, like, I'm gonna be there for four years. When I'm in the NFL, I might be here for a day, and they're gonna cut me tomorrow and send me home, right? And whenever I'm going for a job, it's just a dude, just a guy, you know, another college kid, and I'm trying to take his job. When I'm going for your job, this is to feed your family. If I. If I take your job, your family don't eat. You don't gotta. You gotta go back to the real world. Nobody wants to do that. So it's grittier at that level that this, the speed of the game, it's crazy. It's like there's a lot more processing of the mind and knowing your job and not making mistakes. The intensity and attention to detail is way higher at the NFL level than at college. Not that college you're not trying to be dialed in, but you can get away with a couple things. The league, if you keep messing up, they find somebody who won't. And on top of that, even if you're doing it right, it's me versus this guy next to me, and I'm trying to make you look bad so you have to go home and never come back. But afterwards, hey, let's go grab a burger together, man. Like, it's a. It's a weird dynamic of how you have your teammates, but you're competing for a job to feed and support your entire family in your world. So the dynamic is. It's crazy. It's hard to step into the emotions of it for someone that isn't in it. Because every. I'll tell you this, every single day, bro, it is just. It's. It's tension filled. Like, you get it happen. Like there's tension to it. And if you can't endure that tension, you will never survive.

That's why I failed, man. When I look at my baseball, pro baseball career, I was a free agent, so I didn't get drafted. I signed as a free agent. And I remember waking up every day, Anthony, going onto the baseball field. Because in baseball, you're playing day after day after day. Right. But every day I felt like I had to be perfect because in the back of my head, I said, it's not hard to cut a free agent.

No, it's not. They didn't want you there in the first place. You got to show up.

And so. Yeah, man, I totally get that. You know, and here's what I love about your story so far. Like, talk about the identity shifts, right?

Oh, yeah.

You start off in the foster system, then you're the only black kid in a white family. Then you're the only kid on the field who probably hasn't played football yet. Now you're starring on the field. Now you're in Division 1 Power 5 football, and all of a sudden, here you are in the NFL. I mean, just that alone, the number of shifts in identity.

Yeah.

Would be way too much for some people.

It was a lot for me, too. I mean, let's get. Let's be clear there.

Well, and so this leads to. This leads to. I would. I'm going to call it your best chapter of life, and forgive me if I'm not correct on that, but chapter.

Three, I'll call the same post, post.

Athletic career identity shift of Anthony Trucks.

Yeah.

Because what you're doing today is nothing short of phenomenal. And. But it also required several identity shifts shortly after your NFL career was over to what you do today. Kind of walk us through that. Because there were highs there. There have been a lot of highs, but there's also been some lows.

Yeah. I mean, I think the thing for me is, is we all come out of something. We've been doing it for a while. And when you can't do that thing you've been doing. You go, well, who am I without this thing? And that was the biggest question I didn't have an answer for. And none of us have an answer for when we're NFL professional sports. Whatever it is, what you find is every day somebody is saying, here, show up. And even military, be here at this time. We're doing this at 6, we're doing this at 7, we're doing that a day. You can do this for from 8 to 10, be back here, do this at 11, like your whole entire life. And then they say, all right, you're done. You go home and you have to figure the schedule out. I mean, you have great tools that you can work hard and focus, but it's hard to figure out what to focus on, what I should work hard on, where should I allocate my morning, my what do I do? And so we go out there and then on top of that, what we know how to do, that gave us self esteem and drive. We can't do anymore. I can't run around and hit people, you know, like, I'm not gonna. I'd get in trouble, I'd go to jail. So now I gotta go, what. What do I do without this game anymore? And you fall into this really low, low. And I did, man. I. I ended up, you know, we had a couple more kids with my wife and ended up getting to a point where I had an ugly divorce. I wasn't a present father. My gym business that opened up wasn't doing very well. Like, it was just all. And for a good chunk of years, I really was just floating, like, it all fell apart and I was just floating, trying to figure out what in the world do I do with my life? And it took probably about, for me leaving the NFL to figuring it out was about eight years. Like, genuinely eight years of like, what do I do? And so the journey for me was long and arduous, and it was riddled with like even 1.1 suicidal, like, I don't want to do this thing if this is what life is after the game, like, I don't want this. And it took me getting to a point of having a realization that I wrote about, actually my book. It came out of my mouth randomly in like a podcast while I was writing the book. And someone goes, oh, I love that. And I go, okay, I'm putting the book. But I realized that there's this concept of the fruit of our labor, football. I'm the fruit. I'm the Apple football was this amazing thing. And so I was football and I was his fruit. And when the fruit fell off the tree, the apple can stay for a little bit. I could hang for a couple years and do my thing, but after a while, that apple rots, you know, and. And you feel rotten. If you can't play the game or do the job or you sold the business and you don't have that business anymore, Whatever it is that a business failed, it's like this. Who am I? And so what I realized is my entire life beyond the game, I had fallen apart in all areas of my life because I didn't realize one genuinely true concept, which was I was never the apple or the fruit. I. We have always been the tree. The tree created the fruit of football, the fruit of my marriage, the fruit of being a parent, the fruit of my health that the tree did. And when I was only focused on the one piece of fruit, I lost sight of the tree. So I didn't take care of the tree. I didn't water the tree. I was worried about the one piece of fruit. And so all of a sudden, in my neglecting. The marriage falls apart, the parenting falls apart, the health falls apart, the business falls apart. And it wasn't until I woke up in 2016 and go, oh, this is. Something's off, that I was like, I realized some of this. I go, I gotta. I gotta fix this. Because I'm the common denominator in all of my problems. Whether I've allowed it or I've created, it is me. And so when I went back and took care of the tree again, now things came back to fruitful, right? I have sweeter and more abundant fruit in my life now. I'm remarried to my ex wife in an amazing marriage. I got happy, healthy, joyous kids that are present. They know I'm present, and I'm with them. I have a business where I serve people, I take care of myself, so I'm gonna hopefully live a good chunk of time. And all these things came because I took care of the tree. And to be quite honest, I would much rather have this life than the NFL life. I'm not riddled with tension to make money or, you know, this pressure every single day that. That created. I don't have to worry about my health and getting hurt and tearing shoulders. I'm not away from the house for, you know, 10 months out of the year. It's a vastly different, enjoyable experience because I learned how to take care of the tree.

I love that. That's awesome. And I think you hit upon something so many athletes especially struggle with is that identity.

Yeah.

Of who am I? You know, once. Once that sport is over. And I have so many questions I want to ask after this, because here you are today, now, an identity shift coach. Right. And for the layperson listening, they're probably going, all right, what in the world is an identity shift coast? So. So give us an explanat the work you do today, because I think it's fascinating.

Well, we'll lay out the. We'll call it McCast the outside part of where we're going towards, and then it'll lean into what I do. Because identity is this thing that really is the core of all of it. We've all. We're all wired to do something. If anybody was presented with a certain situation, all of us, based on our wiring, would respond in a certain way. Somebody sees something, they go, oh, opportunity. Somebody else goes and goes, oh, horrible situation. It's a matter of how you're wired. And that wiring is your identity. It's who you are. When you're not thinking about who you are, it's the natural flow to who. Who your humanity is. In the real time moments. You may in hindsight go, I wish I wouldn't have done that. But who would? The person who did that, that's really you. And so that. That you has created the life you're living. So if you have a certain amount of money, certain amount of joy, health, whatever it is, if you want to increase any of those, have more joy, there's going to be things that are outside your current identity, and they happen in characteristics. We call it out of character actions. There is a character in the world that does certain things that actually come to pass because of who they are. That's why there's that great statement that says the first achievement is difficult, the next one is inevitable. It's because the first achievement you had to you out of character, uncomfortable, unconfident things that wired you to get to the point of having the achievement. Now that you're wired that way, you stay like that so you can maintain and actually progress up at some point. Because that thing that. That was out of character, it's now who you are. Right. Same with football. For all of us parenting, the problem is the way you get there. And this is where I come into play. If we're talking about identity as the goal, I talk about it like the shine. We all want to shine. When I was a kid, I wanted to shine, man. I want to Shine in the football field, on the stage. I want to. Even now, I want to shine. Right. Well, the idea of shining is that that's your identity. Going into the world and saying, look at me, I'm dope. What I come and do is go, well, how do we get there? I need to shift your identity. Now, that is something that can be long, convoluted, crazy, but it's actually pretty simple. And it's actually what we. We teach. The wiring is the key. If I in the past have wired to get to the point of doing this, and I'm at this level, well, how do I. How do I rewire? There's one way that we all wire and rewire, experience, literally physical experiences that we've gone through. If I see something that doesn't scare me, it's because I've experienced it before. And I go, I learned how to do that. If I see something and. And it's like, it's not a big deal, it's because I've been wired a certain way to handle that, right? So if. If I look at that experience, the problem is there's two ways it happens. It either happens on demand or when crap hits the fan, some survival situation. I need to make money, and my kid is sick. I mess this up and I'm. I'm. I'm trying to figure it out. So I'll thrust myself to make sure I don't lose everything. And so it's just when crap hits the fan. But it's not a way to actually progressively build your life and achieve great things. I found you should do it on demand, your own choice. And then I had this realization that those moments when you're wiring, they're not usually in the light when you're shining, they're in the dark. When I was 15, one of the biggest things that separated me from 15, being a horrible athlete to being great was one window of time and off season from freshman to sophomore year. And what I learned to do was I go, I want to be great. I don't know what it looks like. I just. I know I have to catch footballs, run routes, lift weights, but I don't do that. That's going to be weird. But I started doing it. I got ridiculed. I got made fun of people. You know, like, it was hard. It wasn't me to lift weights. I was a skinny kid. It wasn't me to run routes, right? But I did this stuff, and the more I did it, the more I became the person who does it. And Then what happened? I came to the very next year, my sophomore year, and I had this mentality that changed my entire life. And it was, I have done too much work in the dark for you to take what is mine in the light. And that simple mentality made me fight and compete with conviction for what I wanted. I had done what I call as dark work. And for me, that is the dark work that wires you. It's called a dark work experience. So the work I do is I help people for the first time create their own on demand dark work experience. I guide people through. How do we set this up properly? How do you want to shine? What identity do you want to have? How do you want to step into the world to where you have this competitive drive, where I have conviction to not lose the girl, lose the job, lose the sale, lose the business, whatever it is, because I've already done the work in the dark. You aren't taking what's already mine. But I got to set that up properly. So I set this up for people and help them actually execute it. For 90 days to roll into this window with a brain body connection finally snaps in. They say it takes 90 days, whatever to ingrain a habit. Partially true. You can get a habit in place and be doing it. It doesn't become this, this connection to your soul until about that 90 day window. That's when it hits it. It's like, this is who I am. To where in the beginning it was hard to do it. Now it's impossible not to do it. You feel weird if you're not doing that thing. And that is at the point where people become something special.

Yeah. I, you know, to tie it back to sports, I feel like, you know, when people ask everybody wants to be Tom Brady throwing the touchdown, The Super Bowl, LeBron James hitting the game winning shot. But when they fail to realize it's all the work they put in off the field when nobody's watching.

Oh yeah.

And I feel like that's the analogy to the dark work. It's the work you're putting in on yourself when no one's watching so that when you, when they do see you, you're in your shine.

Yeah. 100 what it is, man.

I gotta. With a few minutes, with a few minutes we have left, Anthony, because I know, I want to be respectful of your time. I got a big, big question with this. When it comes to identities right now.

Yeah.

One generation I really think of that is struggling with identity is the younger generations.

Yeah.

How do, how do you instill These principles onto your, your, your sons, because.

You make them do hard things, bro. Hard, hard experience. Think about the difference that we had growing up. We didn't have participation trophies. We didn't have this soft mentality. There is. There are windows where there are certain things that do make sense, but we are airing to the side of. Everybody has to feel good. Everybody should feel 100 accepted by certain people, 100%, you know, easy. And it should be smooth. And you should never have hardship. It should never be that hard. And I go, what? Our world wouldn't exist if that was the mentality. There were people that traversed the entire country on horses and little buggies. What if they were like, nah, it's not gonna be comfortable to do that. We don't have settler. We don't have a whole country. And so for me, I think we're robbing kids of their hardships. So for me, I look at and go, what can I make my kids life hard? We do. I have a morning routine with my son. We haven't done it in the last like week. He's had a cough and it's cold outside. But we usually do this thing where we walk to the top of a hill, which is by our house. We do this circle where we breathe the day in. We can see miles around. We do a gratitude, like what I'm grateful for. We pray that we come back down. We do a 48 degree cold plunge on a cold tub. We have. We do a meditation for 10 minutes and I give him a hug for a minute and I tell my love him he's off for the day. But this is like, he has to do something hard. I train him to do things hard. I. School wise, I'm subjecting them to difficulty because I need them to have a relationship with difficulty, but a relationship with also the response to that difficulty. If I can train that in when life rears its head, he'll be okay. Daughter, same thing. All kids. I think the generation is struggling because mom and dad don't want their kid to ever have any difficulty. And the problem is that's not life. We all of a sudden realize that they're going to all of a sudden turn 21 years old and they can just snap it on. No. So that's why we have these problems with these kids and this craziness going on. And even if mom and dad look at their life, their life is difficult.

Yeah.

So how do you prepare a kid for your difficulty? By making it easy.

Left field question. Amy and I are in the market For a cold plunge tub, what do you recommend?

Polar monkey's pretty good. Cold plunge polar monkey is a good one because it's not as expensive as the other ones, but it's. It does the job. And it looks. It looks good. It's not like a nasty tub kind of thing.

Got it.

You can get the ones that are all, like, fiberglass and certain angles, and it's. You know, you're just paying. You're paying for the brand. Yeah, the polar monkey, like, it's the thing that I had. It's like, what I remember being in the league with that, like, the. You know, the trough tub with the little chiller hooked up. Just. We got. I like it.

That's awesome. Yeah. And I love your statement about make kids do hard things because that's. It's honestly a credo, a phrase I often say to myself throughout the day when I don't want to do something. Is something I learned from a coach of mine is we do. We do hard things. It's that simple. We do hard things. To wrap this up and put a bow on this, Anthony, couple questions. Number one for the folks listening in that are like, okay, I need to get more of this dude right here. What are the easiest ways to follow you or get in touch with you?

Yeah, just go to Instagram at Anthony Trucks. Everything you need to know, you can find right there. So I'm not hard to find and make it easy. And I'm the only one besides my oldest son with that name, so you can't really type it in and not find me. Yeah, that's pretty much it, man. I'm not gonna go into the whole rabbit hole stuff. They can go and find me and then go in that rabbit hole when they find me.

And in. In 2021, you authored the book Identity Shift, so we're gonna make sure that's in the notes as well. My last question for you, if you know whether I believe identity and struggling with identity impacts kids, athletes, business professionals alike, everybody struggles with it because I think for so many, they pride, they put so much emphasis on the opinions of others, and often their identity will be created around what other people think they should be. Even I see it in our. In the insurance industry, so many people struggling with their identity. What advice would you give that person right now who does find what, no matter who they are, where they are, what profession they're in, but they're struggling because they know what they're doing and who they show up as today is not the person they want to Be. What's one piece of advice you'd give them?

I mean, you got, you got to define it seriously is pretty straightforward. You have to figure out who that person is you want to be. I think we sometimes go, what I want to have? And even if I say I want to have a million dollars, you can get a million dollars and ruin your marriage in the way, ruin your parenting, ruin your body in the way. It's really got to be a who do I want to be? And that person you want to be can have the money you want, can have the body you want. You got to figure out who they are. Then ask yourself a simple question. What would that person do right now, in this moment, throughout the days? Right. It's, it's, it's pretty much breaking down to that simplicity. If you say, I want to be the person that's a great marriage and has, you know, is a great parent and also makes a million dol. Dollars a year. Cool, Whatever. When it comes in a moment of the workout and, okay, it's six o', clock, I set my alarm and I, I don't want to get out of bed. What would this person do? Or if you want to even make personalize it, think of somebody, an actual human being, that has that. If you wanted to say a person that's a movie star. Right. The rock. If you ask yourself, five o', clock, the alarm goes off. What would the Rock do? You, you probably have an idea of what that person would do. Now you just do that thing. You don't negotiate, you don't try to. I'm not that. No, you're okay. If I want to have it, that human being has. I got to do what the human being does. And in this moment, that's what they do. Let's do it. And you lean in. If you do that enough, it'll start to become somewhere. You're not asking that person what they do. You start telling yourself, hey, this is who you are. We do this.

That's awesome. Well, I want to thank you, man. This has been a special episode for me. Just. I know I've struggled with identity at points in my life, both as an athlete, a chubby kid, and even today in the, in a, in the business profession, professional world, it could be a, it could be a struggle to know exactly who, what your identity is. So I think a lot of people are gonna definitely benefit from what they listen to here today.

And if you're listening in, like I said, this is a guy. If you want, if you want some energy you wanna some positivity. Go follow him on Instagram. Go check out anything about him on YouTube.

What I love about you, man, is, again, it's that optimism and that positivity that. That I've never been in the same room with you, but I can only imagine what it's like being in the same room with you. So. Oh, man, I will. I will tell you. Thank you for being you.

I appreciate that, ma'.

Am. And for everybody else, hey, you know what happens when you get clarity? Mix it with confidence. You do massive things. So go do massive things today. Take care.