Joe Theismann - How To Adapt When Life Hits You

Hey everyone. Welcome to the what now Audio Experience. These episodes are my way of giving you that real, raw, authentic look into business and what it actually sounds like. Some of these conversations are recorded in the studio, some are on the red carpet, and some are with my friends over at dinner. So the audio may be a little rough, but what really stands out to me are some of the behind the scenes conversations that take place when the camera is turned off because they provide so much value from people who are living and breathing business every single day. That's what I wanted to do. Bring you something that represents what business actually is, not just what you see on social media. No fake gurus. And by the way, if you need more help with your business, please visit the what Now Academy at www.wharnow.academy. there you'll learn what to do now and what's coming next to build a great business. Be sure to connect with me on social media, Scott Duffy Media across all channels, or visit my website@www.scottduffy.com. let's do this.

On this episode of the what now Audio Experience, my special guest is Joe Theisman. NFL quarterback, super bowl winner, ESPN broadcaster, entrepreneur, and so much more. And I gotta tell you, when I first met Joe Theisman, it was while producing the COVID Business festival right after the country shut down with COVID back in 2020. And you know, you never really know. I mean, because of what I do, I have an opportunity every day, just the way my life is. I'm constantly meeting with people who are the very best, the best of the best at what they do. And many of these people are very high profile public figures and sometimes you just don't know what you're going to get. I got to tell you. So I was always a big Joe, like huge fan of Joe Theisman. And when I met him, I just was like, just blown away. He was such a cool, awesome dude who was so giving towards entrepreneurs. You know, when Joe was playing for, was playing for the Washington Redskins, he was the guy. He was the number one guy. He was the number one quarterback, super bowl winner, the big contract, all that stuff, until his career literally ended on one play after breaking a leg and he had to reinvent himself, like many entrepreneurs have to do. Sometimes what happens is we may have a great idea, we may have a great plan, we may have a great team, we may execute flawlessly and something comes out of nowhere and it knocks us off course. And everything we've done in our life up to that point or into that business up to that Point we literally have to throw out and we have to start over in some semblance. That's kind of what happened with Joe, with his career as a football player and how he transitioned. And so it was so cool when he volunteered to talk to entrepreneurs. We had over 30,000 people watch the Kobe Business Festival from around the world to talk to entrepreneurs about how to pivot and how to adapt and how to keep your head up and stay focused and keep moving forward. So I really loved my time with Joe and I hope that you guys enjoy this interview as much as I do. You guys have an amazing day and enjoy.

I want to welcome our next guest and I am so happy. I feel so lucky to have him here. Joe Theisman. Joe Theisman is a world champion quarterback. He's an MVP and he's also an entrepreneur. And Joe, I just want to welcome you. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate this opportunity to be able to reach out. You know, in this world of virtual meetings, you have to get pretty comfortable after a while doing all this stuff and you miss face to face interaction with people, to be honest with you. So this is sort of like we're having face to face with a lot of people. And I appreciate the chance to be able to reach out and talk and raise some money to be able to feed the kids and do something good. I think that's one of the things that I really found in my life is I became a me person. I had so much success in the world of athletics. I was a me person. What could I get for me, could I do a movie? Could I do a television show? What was I going to be able to get? And then the night came and changed my life completely. Against the New York Giants on November 18, 1985. That's really when my life changed. Like I said, I just become so self absorbed in our lives. And what this pandemic has basically done, I think it's taken. It's given us an opportunity. And I don't talk about change with people now. I talk about opportunity. People don't resent change, they resent being changed. But now we have to go out and look at our lives differently. We have to think about our life differently. We have to think of our relationships differently. There's so much that is different right now. I see it as an opportunity, just like I did and it took a while to figure it out after my leg was broken in November.

Yeah, you know, and here's the thing about when you broke your leg it feels a lot like entrepreneurship today. So you may have had the perfect idea, the perfect vision, hired the perfect team, built the right plan, put together right capital, executed flawlessly. And it's like something came out of nowhere and it knocked all of us off course.

And I think that's similar to what happened to you.

You were having so successful as a quarterback and then boom.

What I did is basically a microcosm of what we're experiencing now. I had it all. 1984, fourth highest paid player, National Football League. Wow. I think somewhere around there I would have been actually from a salary bonus standpoint, I would have been the highest paid player. At a million dollars a year, that's something to sit on now when you look at some of the numbers that the guys are getting and good for them, God bless them, but I thought I had it all going along. World champion, quarterback, mvp, do all those accolades and then all of a sudden, bang. It ended up November 18, 10:05pm 1985. I went from quarterback of a Washington Redskin football team star, the National Football League to a hospital patient. And for me, that night, it's as vivid as can be. I mean, in my mind, you know, the good Lord enters our lives in different ways and this was sort of a wake up call for me. I didn't realize I was on the path I was on. And I guarantee you, Scott, there's a lot of people out there today looking at their life and saying, I didn't realize I was on this particular path. Yes, things were good, yes, things were going well. But all of a sudden now we're forced to look at other venues and other paths that we have to take. And that happened to me on that night. I'll never forget walking in the locker room, we were in the midst of a so so season. Walked in the locker room, got myself dressed and ready to go. And just as I left that locker room, I was thinking, this is going to be good. I'm a little superstitious. So we used to have that Redskin logo right above the exit. So I'd hit it for good luck for 12 straight years. Except on this night, I got up in my locker, I started out of that locker room, I hit the logo and I said these words, tonight your life is going to change, Joe.

Wow.

Little did I realize I was into prophecy. Went out on that field, wow. The first quarter, threw a touchdown pass, figured, look out world, Joey's back. The Joe Theisman that I love so much is back. We turned to start the second quarter, Coach Gives calls a flea flicker. Suffice to say I'll explain it quickly. It's where I hand the ball to our fullback, John Riggins. He runs towards the line, stops abruptly, throws it back to me. I should have a wide open receiver down the field. He's covered. I look to my right for my safety valve. He's covered. Now all of a sudden, Lawrence Taylor grabs my left shoulder, swings around, fractures my right leg open compound fracture. Sounded like two muzzle gunshots right out here. And laid on the field seemed like it was eternity. It was only about five minutes from the knee down, my leg is completely numb. Joe Gibbs comes out and kneels down next to me. He looks at me and goes, joe, you meant so much to this football team, Joe. This is a heck of a mess you've left me in. Sorry, we both laughed about it. They wheeled me off that field and all of a sudden, Joe Theisman, the football star, Joe Theisman, the football player. The Joe Theisman that I thought was so special was just a hospital patient.

Wow.

And it wasn't. And believe right now people are doing the same thing. If this is not an easy transition, don't kid yourself. For those of you that are watching this right now, I know this is not easy. I've been through that before. But I'll tell you something, you can come out of it the other end. You just have to go back to the foundations that gave you a chance to be what you are and who you are and who you were before all of this started. And that's the important thing. There is a foundation there. We just have to modify it a little bit. Like I said, it's not a change, it's an opportunity.

It feels like we were talking earlier and I think we were talking about.

The off season, we were talking about pauses. And you said something that was really amazing to define kind of the period that we're in right now.

Again, it's interesting because in football we have a bye week.

A bye week.

You get a bye week. So you play seven, eight games, all of a sudden you get a week off. But during that week off, coaches don't take the time to look at the opponent. They take the time to look at themselves. They sit down and analyze who they are as a team. What are they doing? Well, what do they need to work on? What's our personnel look like? You know what? We're in a bye week. I mean, really a buy bye bye week. We're in a bunch of buy weeks right now, as society goes. But this is A chance for us to step back and look at ourselves. What's my relationship with my family? What's my relationship with my partner? My spouse? What's my relationship in the world of business? How can we virtually handle customer service in a situation where you can't get face to face with people? I do cameos, for example, and somebody sent me one yesterday and said, hey, look, I need you to talk to my team. We deal with customer experiences. I said, wow, what a challenge that is. But you know what? It also gives you a chance to learn more about your customer. Things you wouldn't necessarily take the time or have the time to be able to do. See, one of my favorite sayings is the day you stop learning is the day you stop living, Scott. I think that's so important for people to learn every day. Take the time to learn every day. Exercise if you can, get yourself into a routine. I put a collar and a jacket on today because I want to be professional. Sure, I could sit here in a T shirt, I could sit here in a sweater, but to me, that's not professional. I want to talk to people. We have to get back to being professionals, whatever it might be, whatever that you feel comfortable in doing what you do, but we have to find that again. We've gotten pajama and couch comfortable.

Yeah, we have.

What is that thing? So, first of all, when you had.

The injury and your football career was.

Was eventually over, did you have a.

Backup plan or were you in a.

Position where you had to figure it out?

Well, I had to. I didn't really have a backup plan because I just signed a brand new five year contract.

Yes.

I thought, yeah, a million dollars a year. Like I said, I thought I was set. I thought. And then I would worry about the backup plan later on. I wanted to get into broadcasting. I'd done some broadcasting, so that was an opportunity for me. As a matter of fact, what people don't realize is I played in Super Bowl 17 against the Miami Dolphins, played in Super Bowl 18 against the Los Angeles Raiders, and I actually broadcast Super Bowl 19 with Frank Gifford and Don Meredith. I replaced it in the booth. So that was my first taste.

While I was an active player. And I believe there are only two players in the history of football, Jack Kemp and myself, that have actually broadcast games while they were active players. But it sort of wet my whistle a little bit. That became plan B. But I didn't expect plan B to show up as quickly as it did. The other thing too is once we won that championship in 82. I had a chance to go to a lot of different meetings, visit with a lot of different people. And the one thing I noticed that everybody in business was talking about the same things that we talked about in football. They talked about goals, they talked about opportunities, they talked about attitudes, they talked about working together, people, people, relationships. That's really customer service. Talked about those things, talked about teamwork.

And basically I took that to heart and I developed my presentations based on the world of sports, the world of business, and our own lives. As a matter of fact, I happen to have this little gem right here. Yeah, Book that comes out June 16th. I mean, you can go to Premier Collectibles now.

And we will have a link below. We have a link below inside of this thread.

So everyone, I want you to make sure to click on that link.

It was six years in the making. And it takes. And it covers my career and other contributors like General Powell and different people that I've known. That's the thing. I'm an insatiable learner now. I want to learn so much. I hated reading. I read a book in a year when I was a kid growing up. It was because it was a mistake. Now it's like I can't get enough. I can't get enough knowledge, really. It's interesting, Scott. I've been around in my world of football, big people. Been around big, big people because of the relationships that you develop over time. You're around people with great wealth. But there isn't anything that is more impressive to me than knowledge. Someone of great knowledge to me is extremely impressive. I remember walking on a beach with Kareem Abdul Jabbar in Hawaii, and he made me actually walk on the slant that was down towards the water. So he wasn't 7 2. He was like 9ft tall. And that was big. I used to play racquetball with Wilt Chamberlain. Entire court. That was big. But when somebody has great intelligence, to me, that is so incredibly interesting and admirable. I just think growing and learning is so important for all of us.

Never more important than today. I always say with all the changes that have happened in the last few weeks, whatever it is that you did really well a year ago, your superhero.

Power in business is your baggage. Today.

That is the way we have to.

Think about it because things are changing so fast. You've got to be so committed, have a passion, this unrelenting passion for learning, because that's what's going to get us through this, right?

But you can't. You can't you can't just close the suitcase on that baggage.

That's right. That's right.

Because there's valuable lessons in there. There are valuable tools in that history that will allow you to go forward now. They're going to be different. Please know that it's different. Know that it's. It is a changing time. So many things on a daily basis. We wake up tomorrow morning, we don't know what the world's going to look like.

That's right.

In the financial world in particular. I mean, one day it's up, the next day it's not. You're sort of trying to figure out, how do I put food on the table, how do I manage my life? How do I manage my business? Will there be a business? I was listening yesterday and they talked about the fact that when people start getting back to work, more and more people get back to work. They may not go back to the same jobs that they've had.

Yeah.

So we don't know. And so you talk about a plan B. You have to have something to build a foundation on. The great pyramids are not built with the point in the ground.

That's a great expression.

You need that foundation to build from. And those are the things that got you to where you were. Now modify them.

A question I have is there's so many people that are broadcasting for the first time.

You know, everyone is their own media.

Company today, it seems. With these types of things that we're doing. What are a couple of tips that you would give to people that are in front of a microphone and a camera for the first time? Maybe they're interviewing people or they're sharing information. What have you Learned in over 20 years of broadcasting experience?

I think, first of all, on a computer, look at the green dot, the screen all the time. And that's one of the. I mean, I've had to learn to do that. As far as being on television goes, don't try and create situations. Be yourself. You're there because people respect your opinion. You're there because you worked hard to get, to learn things so that you can share information. Yes. You say things that you regret. Gosh knows, I've said enough things where it's open mouth, insert foot. I mean, I've done that on a number of occasions. But you want to be able to explain yourself. And if you're going to present an opinion, make sure it's based in fact.

Like, for example, I, you know, Ricky Williams played for the New Orleans Saints and, you know, was a running back And Ricky had some issues, and he used to just act sort of very different after a game, in interviews, and. And I criticized him once, but I didn't understand that there was a medication that he needed to be on to help him deal with all of the things in our world. I was ignorant. I was ignorant to this fact. And I've apologized to Ricky when I get a chance to see him or if I publicly get a chance, say it as I will now. It was my ignorance that I said something. For now, I want to take the time to understand what I'm saying. So if you're in front of a camera and you're in front of a microphone, if you have something to say, believe in what you say. If it's an opinion, believe in your opinion. But make sure you research it enough that you know. Because in this day and age with facts checkers, let me tell you something, Scott. You will get by with absolutely nothing.

That is the truth. Now, one of my favorite parts about your background, your history, is you are an entrepreneur, and you have been in the restaurant business for years.

40, 40 years.

What advice or what counsel can you give to people that are in the restaurant business today? Is there anything that you're learning or doing to pivot or adapt to help all of our friends out in this industry?

Well, we're constantly trying to adapt to. You know, everybody calls it the new normal. I don't even think you say new normal. We're adapting to a new life, a new business model as it is. I think, first of all, is trying to retain the people that work there. And I don't like the term employer, and I don't like the term employee. I never have. I prefer terms like associates and partners because we're all in this together. I call them business terms of endearment. That's the way I like to refer to people. So the partners and associates that we have in the restaurant business, first of all, we want to be able to keep as many people as we can. We want to keep them employed. Now because of unemployment to a large degree, people are making more money, say, hey, I don't need to go back to work right now. But you can't look at it right now. And an opportunity for people to come back to work, you will eventually need to work. You can't stay on unemployment in an indefinite period of time. So eventually you got to get back to work. And we want to be able to find out what's going on with our people, how are they doing in their lives? What can we do. My restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia, for example, we want to provide through our kitchen, we want to be able to provide foods for the elderly. We want to be able to do things we can in the community. So to get the place up and running again, get everybody comfortable again, I think that's the hardest thing right now. And the way the program is set up, so many people in the restaurant business, at the end, they're not going to have enough people back to work. That's why it's important that we. And I say this, if I was the governor of a state regarding the restaurant business, I would say this to everybody out there. Listen, I'm going to open your restaurants up 25, maybe 50%. But I'm going to ask you in the industry, in the restaurant industry, you police it. I don't want the police going there. I want you to police it. I want you to make sure that there's social distancing, that you have dividers up, that you're seating in every other booth or every other table. People aren't close to one another. I want to also have to work together. It's important that we do this together. So hold yourselves accountable in your own industry. Make sure that. Because if you don't, I'm going to have to shut you down. I don't want to, I don't want to stop your business. But if you can't do what we did to get to this point, then we're going to go backwards and we don't want to, hey, listen, turn around, look behind you. You don't want to go there. I am not a person that likes to look in a rear view mirror. I'm a windshield guy. Every now and then the bug hits the windshield, but it's a heck of a lot behind you.

Joe, I'm so grateful that you spent this time with us. You are amazing. You've been such an inspiration. I've always been such a big fan. And we just want to thank you for all that you've shared today. And could you share your book again with us?

The link is below in the comments.

How to be a Champion Every day. You can go to premiercollectibles.com champion and actually there are signed copies there. The book actually comes out June 16th. It's available on Amazon and other bookstores. I appreciate it and like I said, it's a labor of love. A lot of the things I talked about, a lot more things. It's a business book. It's football stories, but it's a business book. It's a lifebook. And like I said, the world of sports, the world of business, they all parallel one another, and that's the essence of it. But I appreciate this chance to be able to raise some money for real eats to give us a chance to be able to help other people. That's the most important thing, Scott. And that's why you and I are having this conversation. This isn't about me. It isn't about you. It's about what we can do to give people something to hold on to. Maybe in this last 15 minutes, there's something that I said where you say to yourself, you know, I didn't think of looking at it that way. Exactly. I don't have all the answers. I'm trying to play Joey Appleseed. Just throw some seeds out there and see if they grow for you.

Awesome.

Joe Theisman, thank you so much and have an amazing day.

You too, buddy. Take care.

Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the what Now Audio Experience. If you need more help with your business, please be sure to visit the what NOW Academy at www.wharnow.academy. we have an incredible community of entrepreneurs and experts that are absolutely committed to seeing you win there. You'll learn what to do now and what's coming next to build a great business. Also, be sure to connect with me on social media at Scott Duffy Media across all channels or visit my website@www.scottduffy.com. again, thank you so much for joining. Have an amazing day.