Austin Ekeler's Comeback Story

00:00:09 Speaker 1: Welcome back everyone to another episode of Comeback Stories. Here with my man, Donnie has always blessed to be here with you, Bro. I'm really excited about the guests we have today. It's a man I've been able to see up close and personal two times a year, being the same division, him being with the Chargers, me being with the Raiders at the time, someone who's really submitting himself as one of the most diverse running backs in the game. You know, I grew up seeing Marshall Falk guys like that really being great two way players, and he's becoming historically one of the best. Quietly and excited to get to know him in his story A little deeper for you, guys, please welcome Austin Eckler to the show. Austin, what's going on? Man? Hey, what's going on? Man? I appreciate you having me brother. Oh yeah, yes, sir, Man. Grateful to get people to see a different side of you today. We love to dive right in and we want to know what was life like growing up for you as a kid. Oh all right, We're straight to it, man, straight to it. Um. I love it life growing up as a kid. Um. I like to say I learned how to work hard and I learned what hard work was. And that came to me in multiple different you know facets where it was my mother she was a single teacher. Um, she was a single single mother with two kids. Um. And then married and so I had a step dad. Uh, and this guy had his own fencing company. And this is when I was really young, and and so between sports watching her kind of grind to keep food on our table. And then also you know, being with my with my stepdad at the time, who I despised. I did not like this guy being with him and building fence when there was no excuses and you get it done at a high level, um and fast and efficient, you don't run, and you don't say anything about it or else. Um. That was kind of what was ingrained in my head. Um. Just going through that growing up pretty much instilled this mindset that I have today that has continued to push me and just continue to help me overcome any obstacle in front of me. That's a great insight that the fact that you were able to learn some of those lessons and those principles early on on comeback stories. We love to dive in deep and seem like, were there instances of pain growing up when we were younger? Like for me, mine was I was never black enough. Like that was like the narrative from kids and people around me, like things that really just ate at me, and that I believe that's truth. That were negative thoughts towards myself. Was there anything about, you know, growing up in that environment with your stepdad working so hard, or just anything in your childhood that you could look back on and see as like a painful experience that may have affected you in a way. Yeah, I mean I can even relate to that one, you know, just a short story with that. Like I grew up in Colorado. There was like three black kids. I'm light skinned, right, but I was to them. I was black like dark as night up there, because it was three of us in the entire school, right, probably in the entire damn town. And so I grew up around, you know, not as a diverse of a culture that you get actually out in la Um. You're right. And even then I went to college in a in a mountain town and so you know a lot of white people in the mountain town. Um shows just what it was. And so you know, I had that same that same connection there was like you know, you're never wide enough, right, never black enough when it comes to how your you know, your mannerisms are your culture. You know how you speak, talk, you know things you'd like, and so you're stuck in this limbo. Um. So I definitely can relate to that one. But as far as just difficult things overcoming, um, definitely just being in the household. Um. Yeah, with with my stepdad was was tough. Um. And it was tough because you're right, we I grew up out in the out in the country, Like we had animals, and guess who was taking care of those? It was me. He was gone building the fence. I'm taking care of his animals. I didn't want to nothing to do with these. And we're in Colorado talking breaking ice in the winters, um and right, pitching pitching hay in the mornings every day before going to school, coming home, doing the same, um, keeping these these things alive. And then also you know, just during the summers, man is when you really felt the manual labor, where like this man he had a good, good company, like they were reputable. They would get like twenty six miles of barbed wire fence along highways along railroads to keep cattle off of them. And so these aren't small jobs. And so during the summer it's football camps. And when we're done with football camps, right, might hit up the lake for a weekend. But then guess what we're going to We're going to build fence. And like I said, me and this guy who didn't have the closest relationship, and so for me, I think for him it was like I was just there to help work, right, I was just part of the work, right, just work, And I hated it, but I found I found value in it as I've gotten older, because now I see and I look at my mindset, and I look at how far I've been able to come, and really I've just always put my head down and kept grinding. Like I'm a five eight guy right from Colorado, one stoplight town. Who's you know, leading that the NFL and all these categories touchdowns for the past two years, breaking record for the Chargers, And it's like, why is it that? Why is that? Why is that? Because it's not like I'm this huge powerhouse, went to this huge college, but it's because I tapped in mentally, and how I am wired mentally is guess what, it doesn't matter what's in front of me. You're gonna work all the way through it. You're not gonna complain. You're gonna see what the results are at the end. Right. And so that's kind of been my mindset and what I've taken from that as far as value from going through those tough times and actually having a positive out of it. That's such a powerful perspective because I feel like a lot of people were, like you talked about you, you hate you hated your stepdad, you hated the environment, all things that you had to do. But being able to take positivity and meaning and purpose from those experiences that didn't really feel great. I feel like a lot of people struggle with being able to allow those two to coexist, to not really particularly love the environment, love what was happening at the moment, but you're able to look back on it and be grateful for it. I feel like it's so powerful for people to hear UM. Something I thought was interesting when I was researching you was your mom put you in sports and UM and you said. One thing you said was you didn't necessarily like love or passion about football, the way other kids were, but you saw it as an opportunity to leave. Could you explain like more into that and then like what it was like to leave and go to where you went to college? Yeah, man, Like for me, growing up, like sports wasn't like a huge part of our just our living. Like we weren't watching professional sports. We watched a little bit of Nebraska play because I had like a cousin that coached on their football team, so we watched them every once in a while, but never really watched anything in the professional realm and so never like looked for up to like the Broncos and in Colorado, Like never had any of that. So never had any aspirations to go play professional or anything. But what I did have aspirations to do would just kind of be the best um in the environment that I was in. And that was just kind of you know ingrained in meat from you know, just being that in that type of household. Um. You just you just go and you go as hard as you can. You don't you don't complain, you just do it. And so that gave me this perspective. Okay, well I don't like this, but guess what I can try to use the skills that I've been building on and my education to give me my next opportunity. Right. I didn't know what that was going to be, but I was like, Okay, you know what seems to be something that's out there is use football to pay for school, right, And so I'm thinking, I got to get a good education somewhere so I can start right getting more opportunities to make some money to get a career going. And so that was my mindset. And so I didn't have any big schools come to me. No one really wanted to touch me. It was just people around the around Colorado Division two schools that were like, hey, come on and be an athlete, Come on and play corner. They wanted to switch my position. And I was like, I want to play running back. That's what I know, That's what I've done, That's what I went to all these camps for. That is what I want to do. I want to bet on myself to just go play running back. So I had won school Western Colorado that came to me and they were like, hey, we got a spot for you. Want to come play running back? And so use that opportunity right to get into what was coming next for me up in the college level and get my education started. So that's kind of my story of transitioning. Still, NFL was never ever in the picture. So coming from a small town, being a small player, I mean, were these the objections you were getting as you were looking like looking to play at the next level? What were the critics? What was everybody saying about you as to maybe why you couldn't play at that level? Yeah? Man, it was. It was kind of wild because for me, you know, my senior year, I had like forty three touchdowns, ran for like two thousand and three hundred yards, like ten yards to carry, just absolutely destroyed everybody in the conference. And so it's like, look, we went to a small school. So what do you gotta do if you go to a small school, you gotta absolutely dominate right to get noticed. Well that's exactly what I did. And so for me, I was so confused. Might it might have been because you know, we were just at a small school, a small town, one stop like town out in Colorado, one of those towns you just kind of drive right through and you're like, who live here? That's where Austin Eckler was. And so for me, I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm limited to my surroundings, and so I was. I mean, I was only the thing was I was only one hundred and eighty six pounds five eight, and so you know, as far as running backs go, the typical running back, that's that's pretty small. It was funny, actually a quick story. I asked my running back coach now for the Chargers because he coached to Iowa. I was like, okay, look, I ran like an eleven eleven point three hundred yard dash was five eight and one hundred eighty six pounds. Would you have recruited me even with my stats? He's like, probably not. I was like, see, see, everyone was a doubt with me. But guess what put me aside from all these other guys. It was the intangibles, the thing you couldn't measure. You couldn't measure my heart and my desire to go and build upon whatever my opportunity was next. And you still can't measure that. And that's why I still get overlooked because you can't measure that. But that's so much of what Austin Ekeler is right. I'm still that that five eight guy. I'm a little bit heavier, a little bit you know, stronger now. But guess what, I'm still that tiny guy with an undesirable or this undeniable desire to continue to grow. That's how it continue to have success. And so that's what has set me apart and got me into Colorado. But it's there was. I don't blame them when you're when you're looking at all the things that you can compare, Like you compare me on paper to someone else, You're probably gonna go with someone else because I don't have all the paper attributes that you're looking for. Darren and I talk a lot about the Four Agreements. I don't know if you've ever read the book, but in the beginning of the book he talks about domestication where we agree upon certain things like people, people tell us certain things. It starts with our parents, and then it becomes teachers and our coaches, and it might be scouts or you know, prospective coaches that are looking at you and they're telling you certain things, and we just agree because we think those people that are in a position of power, whether it's our parents or somebody else, they know what they're talking about. So what would you say, because I feel like a lot of people get this. Maybe it's the kid coming up who is getting that same thing told to them, that you're too small, you're not fast enough. I mean, what would you say to that person, To the people that are that are talking down on people, or the people that are getting talked about the people that are getting talked down too. Wow, shoot, I see. For me, I had this huge mental toughness that I had to build up just to be in my household. So I was able to kind of take that criticism push it to the side, and so that helped me. And so if if if you don't have the mental capacity to understand that, okay, what everyone tells you, you might not have to listen to them, or it might not actually be the truth what is seen as a truth or the right way. Really, it comes down to practicing mental toughness and practicing understanding knowing what you as an individual want to achieve. Because for me, you know, the real value in life that you can add to yourself comes down to your experiences, to your network, to your education, like those three things, right, and you can continue to build those yourself. It doesn't matter who anyone's talking to you can't do that as long as you can continue to build those and stay focused on what those mean to you. Whether you know you want to become, you know, an educator, whether you want to become a professional or an expert at X YC, it doesn't matter. If you can give yourself a lane and continue to push down a path of this lane, then for me, that helps you stay mentally strong because if someone's talking down to it doesn't matter because their aspirations, what they think about what you're trying to do, doesn't matter because you're staying in your lane. You have your own vision, You're living your own life, not theirs. And it's tough, especially when you have the youth, because you're so influenced when you're young. And so I think that's that's definitely I think shown across the entire if you look at the US right as far as people that can are able to actually continue to stay mentally tough, right, continue to push forward, continue to innovate and grow themselves. It's limited because we have this this system of school where it kind of just put you in this cookie cutter do this, go work your nine to five, have a little family, teach your kids to go to school, work a nine to five. You're a little fit like and it's just it's locked. People are so locked in and it's it's right here, right, Like, you got to break out? How do you break out? Will you continue to gain value for yourself if you do this cookie cutter job forever? Guess what, You're not adding new experiences, new education, new value to yourself. So you have to stay in the lane. You get stuck in one lane. And sorry, I'm kind of going on a tangent here going as far as people getting out and getting motivated and finding some type of fulfillment. You got to break out of that cookie cutter and how do you How do you do that? Well? You got to make sure that you're always continuing to add value and it's not all at once. It's like I said, those things your experiences, What are you doing to give you, you know, skills, your education? What are you learning about? How you growing yourself? How you grow in your mind? How are you practicing mental toughness? Right? And then your network? Who do you know? Who do you know? Because who you know is going to give you a lot more opportunities than any type of money will, right, because who you know, different people have different access to different resources, different networks, like all these different things that are not even money. It just comes down to effort and putting your effort into growing yourself that can get you through these negative talks and all this bs. Right, I'm going through right now with the chargers, right, and I'll end it with this one. Right, I'm going through with the chargers. They're like, hey, I want to get extended. Let's go. I've been peeking. I'm going I'm going in this direction. And they're they're they're like the first people that have given me all this doubt, like they don't want to extend me. All all of extensions have talked, they stopped. They're like, now we don't want to do this anymore. Like what do you mean? What do you mean? It's like you're doubting me, Like after all this I've done for you for the past two to six years of growth, Like look at my trajectory, Look what I've done, look at my leadership in the locker room. Everything is continuing to get better, and you don't want me around the locker room for the next three years, Like what are you talking about? And so guess what staying in the vision. Got to stay the path, right, stay the path. Maybe they don't want me, but guess what, I know, I'm bringing so much value to myself someone else is gonna want me for the next few years, even if I had to play this last year right and be a free agent. And so you know, there's gonna be those aspects in your life all over the place, right, And it's how do you stay how do you stay the course? It's those three things you keep adding that self value, right, your experience you're at, your education, and your networking. You keep doing that. You build yourself up. You start building up your floor and guess what, when you fall down, your floor is already up here. So you have already all these opportunities that you can go and take advantage of. And so I'll digress there. But uh yeah, sorry, that's hot topping for me. Yes, no, that's that's that's powerful, man, And I feel like it's serving you right now because throughout your whole life, I feel like you've had to find a way to become your biggest fan and your biggest supporter. With all the people that have questions, your ability, questions, your size questioned, your durability, whatever it may have been. You've had to show up and believe in yourself when maybe very few people have. And I feel like that's a lesson that everyone needs to have because things aren't always gonna go your way. The results aren't always gonna be the way that you'd want them to. Look, you know what I'm saying. I was. I was. I was six string on the depth chart. Man, Like, coming into the charger, I'm six six, There's five people in front of me. I got I got no names school, I'm coming in and guess what did I care about any of that? No? What did I care about? Let me try to make the best out of this opportunity that I have. Let me just try to do the best. I'm putting in so much extra time, learning, talking to my coaches, like, I'm so stressed. But I was. I was so dedicated to what I had in front of me that it allowed me to take advantage of it. I didn't crush it coming out, but I did enough to get noticed to show that I was going to be consistent. I could be relied on right. And those three things right there are huge and anything that you were, anything you're doing right that you're consistent, right, you could be relied on and you know what you're doing. Right, those three things are gonna get you an opportunity, gonna get you in the door. And then guess what, Then you do this, Then you do it again, right, then you take advantage of what you have. Now do those three things again. All right, Hey Austin, now you know you do well on special teams. Right now, we're gonna put you on an offense. Let's see if you can do something there. Oh, I started scoreing touchdown right, and then there's this build up and so bro like it comes down like I said, stay in your lane and guess what if you hit a wall, guess what, you can use that same energy, those same the lessons like I did right going through you know, growing up, you know in my environment. Okay, what did I learn from that? How can I turn that into something that I can use to learn from and put myself on it on the next path? Right, But it comes down to effort to doing it, because if you don't have effort to do it, you're gonna be stuck. And most of America, I'm gonna say, is definitely stuck. Yeah, I know you didn't know much about our podcast coming in, but I'm telling you, man, you are. You are right where you're supposed to be. You're speaking our language, and you keep saying and whether you're not, if you're not watching this and you're just listening, I see you keep saying, like staying your lane and making this kind of hand gesture. And I love this quote. Race horses where blinders for a reason, and that's really what it is. It's perspective and controlling the controllables. And as you're explaining all this and saying it all with such fire, I go back to the four agreements, which if you're not familiar with them, first of all, you're like embodying all four of them, which one is don't take things personally, which you could have done that many times throughout your career, and maybe you are in a way where you're turning into a healthy chip. Be impeccable with your word, don't make assumptions, and always do your best. And you know, some days like the all you always do your best thing comes into play with people that have that kind of not enough story, which Darren's talked about, that which is rooted in his not Black Enough story, but you know, if we know we're doing our best, even if we're at eighty percent that day, then then we know we've done enough. But I just think, man, the few minutes that you just dropped prior to me jumping in here was like you were embodying and explaining those four agreements and you're living it man, and it's it's the perfect um example that's shaped your perspective and why you're able to do what you do today. Yeah, and I'll add onto that man, Like there's there's depth to those four things you're talking about, right, because we do all have different perspectives, right, You don't you don't have to be this you know, hyper motivated guy like like myself, I'm trying to go to the top and do all stuff, right, but you have you know what you want to do. You know what what's gonna fill your cup, what's gonna make you fulfilled. But the things, the things that we can relate on is the principles of how you get to those steps, right, those principles of that self growth. Right, Like, regardless of what you're gonna try to do, you're gonna have to have some value that you build for yourself and So that's when I'm saying stay in your lane, right, don't look at what as someone else's built over here and be like, dang, I'm never gonna be able to get that. Well, it's like that person has done so much more that you didn't see before then, Right, So it's like, look, you can build there, you can take nuggets from here and there, but it's your perspective, it's your life. You get to control. You said you're doing your best. What does that mean? Because when I if I look at you and I see you're saying you're doing your best, and I might look at and be like that's ten percent of what you should be doing, but for you it might be fulfilling. So I don't want people to get discouraged and be like, oh, I'm never going to be able to right, be that that focused or that excited about anything where it's like no, no, no, no. You get to set your own parameters, which is a good and a bad thing, because you might let yourself slack right or you might even go beyond what you thought you could do right. And so it's so crucial to have right, like I say, these things where you practice your mental toughness. You continue just to push down your lane and continue to push, and then you'll learn about yourself along the way. And so perspective is is a huge part of that. And not getting mixed up with other people and knowing what you want is so crucial, so crucial. Well, I think going back to the impeccable with your word. When I first heard that agreement from the four Agreements, I thought it was like, do the things you say you're going to do for other people, But it's so much deeper than that. It's do the things you say you're going to do for yourself. Because the most self confident people in the world are the ones that keep the promises they make to themselves. So when you say you're going to do something, you follow through on it, and when you don't do it, you feel like shit, right, and then your self confidence and your self esteem is lower, and then you're so much more vulnerable, not only to the internal noise but all that external noise and you start believing it. But if you stay true and do the things you say you're going to do, I mean, you really become unshakable no matter what's going on around you. Yeah, I mean you're you're saying these words, but you know how it is, Like it's hard, it's hard to follow through. It's hard to keep yourself accountable because you're yourself that you can easily let yourself slip. I'm gonna start, i'mna start going to bed earlier, I'm gonna start eating healthier, I'm gonna start working out more. I'm gonna start learning about this like I'm gonna read this book. Like are you like all right? Like what what's gonna change internally for you to actually make that change? Um? And so that's why I always go back to this man practicing mental toughness. And there's different ways to do it, um, you know, with with calendars, with working now, with um accountability buddies, like all these different aspects to help you. Because all these changes we're talking about and basically, this this vision of going towards some type of fulfilled life, it doesn't happen overnight like like it's it's a whole lifestyle. It's literally have to change your entire lifestyle and it takes a lifetime. Like that's for me, that's where I find fulfillment. I'm working towards a completed a version of Austin Neckler, which that's the fulfilling part of life is at the very end whenever I die, right, I feel like I have I've been doing that right, I'm always continuing to I feel like I'm growing myself and so I feel fulfilled. And I think in life that's what it's about. If you ask me, do you feel like your life was fulfilling? And for other people it's perspective right that that means so many different things to so many different people. But at the end of the day, I feel like, you know, that helps help us, helps us have this right, this mental capacity to continue to go um. If you have that fulfilling feeling, No, man, I hear all this wisdom just oozing out of you right now, and it's it's powerful stuff. I want to ask you, was there ever, like a like a rock bottom moment or a moment where you didn't necessarily believe the life that you were living today is possible. Was there like a low moment or a low period or a low season in your life where you can think back on to where you have these principles in your head that you want to live, but maybe you didn't believe them because I feel like a lot of people people have those moments or maybe stuck in that season right now. I don't know if you could speak to them in that. I guess as far as rock Bottom, like there was no way out, felt like I'm stuck. I don't have anywhere to go. I can't relate to that. I can't. I just I just can't relate to that. As far as I've had moments where it's like why am I doing what I'm doing type of thing, like why don't why am I pushing putting all this effort into doing like I just launched a NAP, I have a foundation, I have a real estate you know fund, like I played football, I have a podcast, Like if you dive into my entire ecosystem, it's insane. And so I feel like I've become so obsessed with trying to grow things that sometimes or a lot of times, I live in a space where I'm so stressed all the time. But that's kind of just where it's kind of demented. But that's kind of where I like to be, Like, I like to be stressed, and I like to feel like things may not work out, but I'm gonna try anyway type of type of feeling. And so as far as hitting a rock bottom and running into a wall, I've been fortunate enough to continue to push through um and not have that scenario in my life that I can really speak on. I guess clearly, no, I can. I can relate to the way you talk about staying so busy. A friend of mine put it in a way, he said, blessings that stacked so high they start to look like problems, and it's like, um, where you know, there's there's not this place we arrived to to where you know life should be easy or life should be a breeze. That's why I'm wrapping my mind around now, like if I have a great purpose in my life, if they're if I have a great calling and a lot of I'm carrying a heavy load. That's what it's My life was meant for me to be for, Like I'm meant to carry this load to show other people they could do the same thing. They could push boundaries, they could have a great ecosystem like you're saying, they don't have to be limited to one field or limited to some way of living like that. I said, we've been domesticated too so just I can definitely relate to where you are right now with you know, I love making music, I got this podcast, I got my foundation, and I love giving back to community of mental health in addiction. You know what I'm saying. And it's like, I wouldn't have it be any other way. Sometimes I sit down, i'm driving or I'm sitting by myself, and I'm like, man, my schedule is like my Google calendar looks like a rainbow of all this stuff that's in it. But I wouldn't have it be any other way because if I was just sitting around not doing anything, my mind would be sputtering out of control. And you know, I just don't feel like i'd be growing. Like you said to the person, I want to be right and then if I like to take it back just speaking on this stuff and then even taking it back further even before the NFL, just because I think people can relate more. I mean, obviously most of listeners are not in the NFL. Like I remember back in college, man, for like whatever reason, I used to post. I used to put like these posts out on like Instagram about just like mindset, and I used to listen to so many different mindset people like as far as workout people, as far as entrepreneurs. And I used to put out like my own little quotes about like, you know, getting your ass going and don't settle and all these types of things. And that was back when I was like seventeen eighteen years old, and so that was that was the mindset then, And it was just I was I was being around that, that was the content that I was taking in. Those are the types of things that I was Those are the types of people I was around for my teammates. And so I created an ecosystem around myself where it was like, this is the type these are the types of people I want. This is the type of content I want to be around. And it literally just became me right, And so I'm sure it's similar with us. Right football just gives us that. Right, football just gives us this vessel of Hey, you have to do this. You have to work hard, that's the standard. You have to work as a team. You have to push yourself. Right. But if you take yourself out of that, you can still continue to apply those same principles, but it just comes down to you. Now you have to put that team around yourself when that team there's not always people. It could be content, right, it can be the things you're reading, it could be you know, the things you're learning about. And so I think it's just so important just to be able to relate on a basic level. That's what it comes down to, what you're surrounding yourself around. I feel like just listening to both you guys and seeing how much more you are than just the athlete, than the football player. And Darren I have talked and worked around, worked a lot around this of just figuring out who you are beyond the sport, because one day it's going to end for you and you better know who you are. I mean, that's kind of my story in a cliff notes version. I've told it on the podcast, but for you Austin, I was a college baseball player at Arizona State and had a traumatic d surgery knee injury, and it ended the sport for me, and it sent me down this really dark road of addiction. I got addicted to pain pills. I was doing a lot of other drugs, but really that had the grip on me. And it wasn't until years later when I ended up in rehab and I was starting to look at my life like, what the fuck happened to my life? I was this baseball player, that was my identity, this star, and now I'm a drug addict. And after getting therapy for the first time and actually diving into this whole world of personal development and understanding and connecting the dots, it was that I didn't want to I didn't want to feel the emotional pain of the loss of this identity of a baseball player. But because that's all I ever knew, so it almost killed me. So it's inspiring for me to see you tube men that have so much more going on than just the sport. And even though it adds a lot to your plate. You know, I know God will never give us more than we can handle. And I also know that, like too much that's given, comes great responsibility. And you guys have been given a platform, but not only a platform, an open mind willingness to actually like share this stuff, right, And so I just see you, see the both of you like doing so much more than just what you're doing on the field, and it's it's a beautiful thing to witness and hear you guys conversate, and it's it's so important what things you're talking about. And you know, I'm curious, you know, if if you don't mind me asking as far as when that addiction started. Was it when you retired or as you were going through like rehab with your and stuff like that, or what great question. Yeah, this is this is what we talk about all day long, so you can ask me anything. But yeah, so it was. I had a cadaver transplant of my meniscus. I was the first person in Arizona to ever have this procedure. The procedure was a disaster. I was prescribed to eighty percus set a week for a month straight, and then the doctor cut me off cold turkey. So I had every reason to blame it on the doctor over prescribing, but I still wasn't even getting reprieve from the pain. I mean, I was bedridden for over a month and a half and it was like turned the corner pain wise. But then as I it was like the perfect storm losing baseball, went through a breakup, had to drop out of my classes, and so I'm kind of thrust back into this world with like no identity and no purpose. And so I went into the world of just partying and it was like, you know, I thought I was having fun in the beginning, but then you know, when Monday would come around and everybody else was done partying, I couldn't even step foot outside my door because I was so riddled in anxiety and fear. So I would take pills. And I wasn't taking pills to get fucked up. I was taking pills to feel normal. And then it was just a constant cycle of that for for years until I, like by the grace of God, found myself in rehab and and was able to figure it out. Yeah. And the reason I'm asking because I feel like I see it play out time and time again, especially in the NFL, where it's like, you know, from a younger age, especially in sports, in school and being under you know, at the authority of your parents, you have your handheld, right, like you have someone guiding the way for you, right, And we continue to go down, especially in football, like we continue to go down this line of you know, you go to high school, you go into college, and guess what, when you go into pros, you ain't getting your hel to handheld anymore. College you got to work out of this time. You got to go to class here's the schedule, here's meetings, here's what you got to do. Guess what in the pros during the season, Yeah yeah, come work out, But guess what you can You could do whatever type of workout you want to do, right, it's on you, right. And studying, you can study whenever you want to study. Right offseason, you do whatever you want to do. Right. Your hand is not held anymore. Right, so the true colors of who you are start to show because now you don't have that authoritative figure or that that structure that's set into your life. Right. And so for some guys, a lot of guys when they're young, it's like, Okay, I gotta figure this out, right, and I'm hoping right, this is why I've talked about this stuff all the time. It's like, guess what, You're not getting your hand held anymore. So how can you start to build yourself up so that you can put your structure into your life like you did coming out of rehab. You got the structure put back into your life where it seems like, right, you had all this stuff happen at one time, right, You had that was like your crutch. You kind of just fell off of the structure and then you're like, okay, let me, let me start doing this, and you found out the hard way that that's not what you wanted to do. And so it's like, as a young from all my young guys that come in, I'm like, look, start learning, start meeting people, right, That's that's all you gotta do. You don't have to be building stuff, doing all these foundations all that stuff. Just learn and meet people. Right, So you can give yourself options to have some type of structure moving forward in your life, because if you don't do that, you're going to be lost right when you're when you get out of this, whenever you're whenever you're handhelding time ends a lot of people after high school, right after you graduate, if you don't have any structure for yourself going forward, you are going to be so lost. And that's that can be okay if you have a good right, a good network around you, it's a good support system. But as you get further away from that, and as you get older, you'll start to realize that you're gonna be depending less and less on them, so you'll be to any more on yourself. Right, So you got to give yourself options right, give yourself options and shoot your scenario. You know, it wasn't even choices that you made, right, it was just things that happen to you, right, And so it's it's preventative too. It's preventative, right, having these things right, just can always continuing to build around yourself because you don't know. Life could come. I could I could lose my career, lose everything. Right, Well, guess what, I still would have options because I've been building around myself, right, And so it's so important. It's so important because you don't know, you don't know. You didn't know all this stuff was going to happen to you, right, So, but you were probably so focused on baseball, right, and then all of a sudden, right everything changed. It was like, okay, what do I have to fall back on? And it seemed like it was drugs at the time, and was there nothing else? Was like was it? Where's the family support? I'm curious now, I'm asking where was the family support? Where was your network or anyone around you? Yeah? I mean they were, they were there, they were trying, but there they didn't have the tools to deal with um an addict, right, they didn't They weren't going to alan on before this all happened. And you know, my mom is so blinded by love that she was enabling. Oftentimes she thought she was helping, but she was actually getting in the way and taking me in and rescuing and and and and digging my bottom deeper. But that's all she knew. She was scared out of her mind that if she didn't take me in and I was living on the street, that I would die. But maybe that's what I needed to actually get to my bottom quicker. So it really changed for me, and I think Darren could We've talked about this often, like it. Everything changed when I just took ownership and I stopped blaming the doctors and I stopped playing the victim and I just owned my shit. I looked at my part in the whole thing and got honest. And that's when everything changed, not only from a sobriety standpoint, for just in my life, just like taking ownership, stop playing the victims. It was on me and today it's become the greatest It's become my greatest asset. We used to bury me in guilt and shame of this, Like addict who made a lot of bad decisions today, it's by far like the greatest gift. It's why Darren and I are are connected and best friends and have this connection. It's why we're sitting here talking to you right now, which is wild sometimes to think about the decisions that I made have led to this moment. Yeah, I mean, the hard times right give you the biggest struggles but the biggest glories in your life. Right if you if you make it out of any especially your guys's time, if you guys make it out of your time, the glory of that and the power that that brings to your life of like, look what I did, I did that ship like that that strength that that gives you right to actually go out there and if you can articulate that to other people even powerful but just as it and internally for yourself, if you can make it through that shit, That's why I invite hard times. They suck, absolutely, they're terrible, right, Like I don't I don't want them, but like when they're here, it's like all right, like I'm going through this, like let's get through this um. And you know I have people in my in my corner like that are going through some some like health problems right, Um, you know they didn't control that. But it's like I was like, bro, like just no, like I'm I got you, I got your back. I'm here mentally for you. But guess what when you push through this, I cannot wait to be there here in your story about Hey, this is Look look what I pulled through, right, because it's it's all like it just gives you, like like you a whole new life to go forward, and you feel like you're like, Okay, I can take on, like look what I just did right, going to work, trying to find a job, getting on my feet. That's easy because I just went through that. Right. For you guys, right, coming through this addiction, getting clean and then pushing forward, right, it makes it puts things in perspective for you, and it makes makes things seem not as serious, because you know what something that as actually serious really is, especially when it's talking about you know, your livelihood, which is about as serious as it gets. So yeah, props to both you men. I love I love the turn that this just took because I was going to circle back to this. I feel like the reason you're so mentally tough is because there was adverse circumstance after adverse circumstance that you stepped right into, put your face in the fire, and we're able to see aside of you, see yourself be stretched to ways and links that you never thought you could could get to. And to develop that toughness, it takes discomfort. It takes putting yourself in situations, walking through situations that do not feel good, because if you always go with something that feels good, your mind's gonna be set on comfort. Your mind's going to be set on pleasure, your mind's going to be set on Oh, I just want the results of things, as opposed to wanting the process of things and wanting the journey of things. And when we're stuck in that mindset, we're going to continue to find ourselves asking why am I here? I was the same way with Donnie with my addiction, you know, like I keep asking myself like damn, like why? Like I was told this was a way for me to feel better. I was told, like whatever dream success, that this plan, this blueprint in the world laid out in front of me, was the way I was supposed to go. But it's like, man, is this doesn't seem like it's working, but I find myself being the biggest part of the problem. At the same time, if I'm the biggest part of the problem, I can also be the biggest part of the solution as well, So when that provides a lot of power to my perspective as well. So once I start to understand those things, like every single choice I make, every single decision I make, like you said, the people I'm getting to know, the relationships that I form, Like all these little things that we think are small or cliche or aren't the big firework moments of our lives that we're trying to get to so fast. If we overlook those, and we're overlooking the real magic that lies within our story and our comeback story. Yeah, and then not just your comeback story, but your life in general. Like you just think about it. Think about it. What's giving you more opportunities in life? Right? Like money or your skills, your network, your effort, all these things that you can control. Right, Money would definitely give you opportunities, for sure, But you, you are the asset, right you. It's your story, it's it's your skills, it's your value that you can add to someone else, not your money. Money is all over the place. Right, But guess what, they don't have your mind, they don't have your experiences, they don't have your knowledge. Right, the ability to share this story is so powerful, right you like, oh, like you're you're speaking the language. Man, it's good. I'm disagreeing with you. Like it goes beyond that, right, the things that are real value in life, I think we get like you're saying, we want the short term the results. Right, Like for me, just using my example, like I was never going I was like, oh, I'm gonna get to the NFL. That was never that was never even a plan for me. Like I was going to use football to get my education in business. I wanted to go to business and I wanted to start getting into some real estate. That's what I wanted to do. And so I went to Division two school and guess what, we don't get full rise of Division two schools. So guess what you gotta do. You gotta play get all American, get all conference. Then you can get your scholarship increased like a thousand bucks every every semester. And so I'm grinding my ass off to get my scholarship in created because I my mom, single mom ain't paying for college right like that ain't that ain't happening. So I'm trying not to have debt, right, and so I did. I was just focused on on just building, just building myself right, myself, my education right, my skills, things like that, and it gave me an opportunity. I didn't have any money, you know, Like it didn't come from money. It didn't come from these short term results that people are chasing the stuff. The stuff. The real opportunities in life come from building yourself up to the point where you're you're desired by other people, right, and the skills that you have and the experiences you've gone through. And so I agree, man, I agree, fire man. Yeah, so good. We know you. We'd love to keep you on here for long and I know you an active dude. Uh So we appreciate appreciate it for all the time that we could get from you. Appreciate you coming in and sharing your story, sharing your mind, sharing your heart. Man, We're grateful, bro, Thank you absolutely Hey to YouTube, man, like keep keep going, bro, Like it was like episode like fifty, We need like a thousand, right because this message right, this this stuff, I know how content creations is not easy. It's not easy, but the messages that these messages need to keep getting reiterated, right because it helps people in so many different ways. So props to you, Props to all your listeners out there that keep tuning in on the weekly. So I appreciate you boys for having me on though. Thank you man, this is so good. Appreciate you. Yeah. Absolutely,