Former NFL quarterback Drew Brees shares his remarkable transition from the football field to the world of entrepreneurship.
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00:00 Like that your dream is just being ripped out of your chest.
00:03 - For those who know your story,
00:05 probably know more of your highlights than the dark days.
00:07 - At that moment thinking, you know,
00:09 God, why me?
00:10 My doctor's telling me I had a 25% chance
00:11 of ever coming back and playing again.
00:13 - There's a fire in your eye when you talk about that,
00:15 'cause I think you actually like the challenge.
00:16 - The level of success,
00:17 that you never would have been able to accomplish.
00:19 That had nothing to do with an injury or whatever.
00:22 That was, you are not good enough.
00:24 - Welcome to the show, Drew.
00:27 - Jeff, great to be here, man.
00:28 Thanks for having me on.
00:29 - Yes, thank you.
00:30 It's been a journey the last couple of years together,
00:33 so I'm excited to get to sit down with you
00:34 and talk a little bit about your past
00:36 and what makes Drew Brees successful
00:38 outside of just football,
00:39 which obviously you had such an illustrious career,
00:42 but I really am more interested in the post football, Drew.
00:45 Because, you know, I think as you look at your career,
00:50 number one, what you did on the football field
00:52 obviously speaks for itself, so congratulations.
00:55 - Thank you.
00:56 - But what you're doing now, I think,
00:57 speaks more to who you are and what you stand for
00:59 as a human, as a father, as a husband,
01:03 and as a member of the community,
01:05 and how you've translated success off the field.
01:08 And I think that that's something
01:09 that is not always easy for people to do
01:10 when you spend your whole life focusing on just one thing
01:13 and putting all of yourself into it
01:15 and then having that start over moment.
01:17 So that's kind of my hope today,
01:18 is to dive into a little bit about that
01:20 and spend some time chatting about it.
01:21 - Sounds good.
01:22 Right here in Unevolved Studios, by the way,
01:24 this is really impressive.
01:26 I was just, I might need to come back
01:30 and shoot a music video or something like that in here,
01:33 bring the boys in here,
01:34 like we could have some fun in this studio.
01:35 - Yeah, it's cool.
01:36 It's here at our headquarters, which is, it's fun.
01:38 It brings us all together here at Ever Bowl HQ.
01:42 - I dig it, I dig it.
01:44 - So take me, if you don't mind,
01:45 the first question I really want to ask you is
01:47 that when you knew your career was coming to an end
01:50 and you had to kind of envision
01:51 the Drew Brees 2.0 professional,
01:53 not the husband, the father, the member of the community,
01:56 but just what you were going to sink your teeth into,
01:59 was it a natural walk into business?
02:01 - Yeah, it was.
02:03 I feel like I've always had a bit
02:05 of that entrepreneurial mindset.
02:08 I mean, I can remember as a kid,
02:11 walking around and knocking on all my neighbor's doors
02:16 with my lawnmower and basically saying,
02:19 like, I don't care how big your yard is, five bucks.
02:22 Like, I'll cut the grass, I'll bag it up,
02:25 I'll get it down to the curb,
02:27 and say, you won't have to worry about a thing, right?
02:29 - That's dangerous in Texas,
02:30 'cause there's some big property down there.
02:32 - Some big yards, yeah.
02:34 But no, that was my little side hustle as a kid,
02:39 going to the local golf course.
02:43 And my brother, Reed, and I would go to the creek
02:47 and we'd basically fish out,
02:50 this is back when orange, yellow, pink golf balls
02:52 were pretty popular,
02:53 kind of making a comeback, I guess.
02:55 But we would fish those out, we'd polish them up,
02:58 and we'd go and sell the golf balls back to the golfers
03:01 to make some extra cash
03:02 so we could go buy baseball cards, right?
03:03 So I feel like I've always had a little bit
03:05 of this entrepreneurial mindset.
03:08 And I knew that I wanted to go study business in school,
03:12 so I was able to go to Purdue University
03:14 and graduate from the Krannert School of Management.
03:17 And even though I had the opportunity to play in the NFL,
03:20 which was, I mean, a dream come true,
03:23 obviously as a kid who loved sports
03:24 and hoped that I'd get that opportunity,
03:25 I always felt like, and really chose Purdue
03:29 because I wanted that degree, I wanted that network,
03:32 and at some point I am going to use this business degree
03:36 within the business world.
03:39 And even as I was playing, look,
03:41 I was able to play professional football for 20 years.
03:45 Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think
03:47 that that would be possible or happen.
03:49 But I think along the way,
03:51 I was always trying to prepare myself for life
03:53 after football for what I would be transitioning into.
03:56 And franchising became one of those things
03:59 that back in 2011, about midway through my career,
04:03 I kind of fell into more so just out of pure authenticity
04:08 and maybe a little bit of selfishness too,
04:12 which was that I was at Purdue University,
04:16 I became obsessed with Jimmy John's sandwiches.
04:19 I would have them delivered to my dorm, Wiley Hall,
04:22 three times a week.
04:23 - What was the sandwich?
04:24 - It was the number nine, no cheese, I had hot peppers,
04:28 which is the Italian nightclub, by the way.
04:32 But like three in the morning,
04:33 you're sitting there studying late or whatever,
04:34 God, I'm starving, you'd call up Jimmy John's
04:37 and next thing you know, you'd have this guy
04:38 riding his bike to you, handing you a Jimmy John's sandwich
04:40 like 12 minutes later, and you're like,
04:42 this is the most amazing thing ever, right?
04:44 Plus it was delicious.
04:45 Well, then I get drafted by the San Diego Chargers,
04:47 I come out here, no Jimmy John's,
04:48 I go to New Orleans Saints five years later,
04:51 no Jimmy John's.
04:52 The only time I'd get a Jimmy John's
04:53 was going back to Purdue.
04:54 So finally, 2011, midway through my career,
04:57 I'm back at Purdue, I'm sitting there
04:58 taking a bite of a number nine,
04:59 and I'm like, that's it, I have to bring this
05:03 to wherever I am, right?
05:04 I don't care what I gotta do.
05:07 Well, it just happened to be that I went to,
05:09 I played football with a guy who is now
05:11 VP of operations for Jimmy John's Corporate,
05:13 so I called him up, said, Carl,
05:15 what do I need to do to bring Jimmy John's
05:16 down to New Orleans?
05:17 He said, we just opened up the territory,
05:18 are you serious?
05:19 I said, yes.
05:20 So that started the process, so next thing I know,
05:22 I'm a Jimmy John's franchisee down in New Orleans,
05:25 and we grew that to about 25 units
05:28 throughout the Southeast, but that really got my brain
05:31 working on the franchise side of things.
05:34 I was a franchisee there, and then I think over time
05:37 evolved to being on the franchisor side,
05:41 but understanding the needs and the desires
05:44 of the franchisee and how they deserve to be supported,
05:47 and I think that that's really gone a long way
05:50 with how I've been able to transition
05:53 to franchisor side, how I view being on that side,
05:55 and then how I choose the brands
05:57 that I wanna be involved with,
05:59 which at the end of the day, it's all about authenticity.
06:01 I start off as a customer before I ever think about
06:04 being on the other side of this, right?
06:05 Same with Everbolt, right?
06:07 Here I am going to Everbolt just about every day.
06:09 During COVID, I'm ordering it to my house,
06:10 I'm ordering Later Bowls to my house every day.
06:12 - I will tell you, the best things was the text you used
06:14 to send me of your kids eating a Later Bowl in the morning
06:18 and saying, "I'm getting better.
06:19 "Showing me your bowl-ology skills."
06:21 - Right?
06:22 - And this is, what, we hadn't even franchised yet.
06:25 - This is 2020, right?
06:26 Yeah, March, April, 2020.
06:28 Eating acai bowls every day for breakfast.
06:31 - You got pretty good at 'em.
06:32 - Yeah, you know what?
06:33 I mean, I like my technique.
06:35 I was getting creative, too,
06:37 whatever I could find in the pantry.
06:40 Almond butter, peanut butter, you name it, right?
06:43 I was throwing everything in there.
06:44 So at the end of the day,
06:48 I've always had the entrepreneurial spirit.
06:50 I love franchising.
06:51 I love what it does,
06:54 the opportunity it provides for franchisees
06:57 to control their own financial future,
06:58 to take a proven model,
07:01 and to be able to go out and execute that,
07:02 and then have the support.
07:04 And I think the leadership and the branding
07:08 and the culture creation that comes
07:11 as a result of the brand,
07:13 I only wanna align myself with brands
07:14 that, number one, authenticity,
07:15 number two, great leadership, great culture,
07:18 and number three, unit economics, right?
07:19 That has to work in order for the franchisees
07:22 to be successful,
07:22 and of course, for you to be successful as a brand.
07:24 But it's all about how you can pass on that support,
07:27 how you can pass on the economies of scale,
07:29 how you can pass on all those things to the franchisees
07:31 so they can be successful.
07:33 - So when you speak about authenticity,
07:35 and I think that that's so important,
07:37 not only with the franchise concept,
07:39 but just with who you are,
07:41 'cause obviously you don't just own
07:43 Jimmy John's and Evergles.
07:45 You have, now you have a portfolio.
07:48 And is it just, obviously you're a customer first,
07:53 obviously leadership's important,
07:55 unit level economics are important,
07:57 but how much do you believe in the authenticity
07:58 of the community of franchisees?
08:00 Meaning when you have that collective group of owners,
08:04 and you have these people taking control
08:05 of their financial freedom,
08:07 do you enjoy or do you think it's important
08:09 that they lean on each other?
08:10 - Absolutely.
08:13 There's so much, first off,
08:18 everyone is gonna have their own experiences, right?
08:22 And it's those experiences that give you knowledge,
08:24 and then therefore wisdom, right?
08:26 Especially those that have been in the industry
08:27 for a long time.
08:29 At the end of the day,
08:30 that's the knowledge and the wisdom that you want,
08:34 especially if you're somebody
08:35 who's just getting into the business,
08:38 to help you maybe avoid some of the pitfalls, right?
08:41 At the end of the day,
08:42 we're all gonna experience some of them, right?
08:44 And unfortunately, failure's the best teacher, right?
08:47 But that is how you refine,
08:52 that is how you continue to improve.
08:56 That's how you maintain a growth mindset, right?
08:59 That you're always looking to get a little bit better.
09:03 Part of you getting better is to be able to teach,
09:05 to be able to mentor,
09:07 and then also to be able to receive that in return.
09:10 And I think the franchise community itself,
09:15 whether you're a different brand
09:17 or whether you're a competing brand,
09:19 there's so much that can be learned
09:21 within the franchise community from each other.
09:23 - Yeah, I absolutely agree with you.
09:26 And full disclosure, obviously, Drew,
09:29 you are a franchisee of Everball and an investor of Everball.
09:32 So thank you, obviously.
09:34 But you've now just topped up with more stores.
09:39 Your group now has 150 Everball locations coming
09:42 all throughout the Midwest and South.
09:44 - I think it's gonna be about 160, actually.
09:46 - Is it gonna be 160?
09:48 - I mean, we can keep that going up.
09:52 - Well, we can talk about it.
09:55 In addition to the restaurants
09:58 and in addition to franchising,
10:00 you mentioned that failure is the best teacher.
10:03 And for those who know your story,
10:04 probably know more of your highlights than the dark days,
10:07 because like everybody,
10:09 we don't always advertise what those are.
10:12 Do you mind taking me back to the first major,
10:16 we'll call it, you say failure, I'll say lesson
10:19 in your life that you thought might,
10:21 maybe not break you, but it tested you.
10:24 It was the one that made you go,
10:25 "Okay, you know what?
10:26 "I gotta figure this out.
10:27 "This was a serious setback."
10:30 - Yeah, so many of mine early on
10:34 came within the realm of sports,
10:36 within the realm of football,
10:38 'cause that's obviously where my focus was.
10:42 And I think that's where,
10:43 I mean, that's why I'm such a believer in team sports
10:45 and just sports in general,
10:46 because I think it teaches you so many life lessons.
10:49 I was a high school football player in the state of Texas,
10:54 went to a pretty perennial powerhouse school
10:57 called Westlake High School in Austin.
11:00 And year in and year out,
11:02 we were competing for state championships.
11:04 We were going deep into the playoffs.
11:05 And somehow, some way,
11:07 I became the starting quarterback for this school.
11:10 And I was a three-sport athlete.
11:11 I was playing football, basketball, baseball.
11:13 And really, if you would ask me what order those were in,
11:16 it was probably baseball, basketball, football.
11:18 Football was maybe third.
11:19 But I had kind of had a family lineage of playing football.
11:24 And I lived in the state of Texas.
11:27 - Brought in the lights.
11:28 - It's kind of a requirement.
11:29 So here I am my junior year
11:32 and starting quarterback for the football team.
11:36 Probably the best team we've had there, maybe ever,
11:38 in the history of our school.
11:39 So we are on our way to going to win a state championship.
11:42 And third round of the playoffs,
11:44 I end up coming off of a bootleg pass and I get hit.
11:47 I didn't see it coming.
11:48 And I come down and kind of unstable on my left knee
11:52 and just feel this hard separation
11:55 and go to the ground and realize very quickly
11:58 that something is seriously wrong.
12:00 And go to the sideline
12:01 and have the orthopedic surgeon look at me and say,
12:04 "Hey, you just tore your ACL."
12:05 And probably a lot of other things.
12:07 I ended up tearing my MCL, my lateral meniscus as well.
12:10 And so, bad knee injury.
12:13 And this is 27 years ago.
12:15 I mean, even nowadays,
12:16 like look at Odell Beckham.
12:18 Odell Beckham Jr. tore his ACL in the Super Bowl.
12:23 And that was more than a year ago now.
12:25 He chose not to sign anywhere last year.
12:26 I don't know if that was a result of knee.
12:27 But bottom line is like that takes a long time.
12:30 And 27 years ago, it was even tougher surgery and recovery.
12:35 - Today, it's the best it's ever been.
12:36 - Yeah, today you're still six to eight months,
12:40 eight months, and then it was probably eight to 12 months.
12:43 So for me to have somebody look at me and basically say,
12:48 like, "Okay, you hurt your knee.
12:50 "Not sure how it's gonna respond or recover."
12:54 Not only did that end my football season,
12:56 but I miss now basketball season
12:59 and I miss baseball season.
13:00 This is my junior year.
13:01 This is when you get recruited, right?
13:02 So my dream as a kid was to go and be a college athlete
13:06 and to be a multi-sport athlete.
13:07 As trivial as that might sound, I mean, as a kid,
13:11 like everything revolves around that, right?
13:14 - It's not trivial, it's your dream.
13:15 - That was your identity, right?
13:17 - Yes, it's no different than any other dream.
13:19 - Right, so I remember at that moment thinking,
13:24 you know, like, "God, why me?
13:25 "Why now?
13:26 "Why could this happen?"
13:28 And it kind of sent me on this journey.
13:31 I was like 5'11", 170 pounds at that time.
13:35 And I remember just kind of looking at this rehab process
13:37 like, "All right, well, regardless,
13:38 "I am just going to take this one day at a time
13:40 "and I am gonna work as hard as I possibly can
13:43 "and I'm gonna do whatever those doctors tell me.
13:45 "I'm gonna set short-term goals for myself
13:47 "and I'm not gonna think,
13:49 "I can't think eight to 12 months from now, right?
13:51 "'Cause that's just, that's overwhelming, right?
13:53 "But like, what are the short-term goals
13:55 "that I can sit here and accomplish?"
13:56 And, you know, "Hey, doc, what range of motion,
14:01 "when am I gonna get full range of motion?"
14:02 "Well, it's not for nine weeks."
14:04 "Okay, well, hey, six weeks, I'm gonna beat that."
14:06 Like, so whatever benchmark you put in front of me,
14:09 like, I'm just gonna focus on beating that, right?
14:12 And so I think it just gives you these short-term goals
14:15 and before you know it, four or five months have passed
14:18 and you've made extreme progress and you're like,
14:20 "Okay, like, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel."
14:22 So in that-- - It's a lot of maturity
14:24 at that age. - Yeah.
14:25 - To have that focus of, okay, short-term goals,
14:29 'cause a lot of people would probably at that age
14:32 not be able to identify how to attack that.
14:34 - Yeah, yeah, I would say this,
14:37 and I learned this from that.
14:39 I also learned this when I hurt my shoulder here
14:42 with the San Diego Chargers and--
14:45 - And that cost you-- - Thought that I might not
14:46 play football again, right? - Cost you your job
14:49 at San Diego. - No, it did, absolutely.
14:50 - And I was a Charger fan at the time.
14:52 - Yeah, and didn't have many people knocking on my door
14:55 after that too, it was really two teams,
14:56 it was Miami Dolphins and New Orleans Saints.
14:59 But I had doctors tell me I had a 25% chance
15:01 of ever coming back and playing again.
15:03 I find that you go to another place,
15:09 mentally, psychologically, spiritually,
15:12 when you feel like something is totally
15:15 being taken away from you.
15:17 Like that your dream is just being ripped
15:20 out of your chest, right?
15:21 That you, and that's really the way I felt,
15:25 especially with this right shoulder injury
15:27 leaving San Diego, and to a certain extent,
15:29 as a high school kid with a knee injury,
15:31 was that you are not gonna be allowed
15:34 to do this anymore, right?
15:35 I mean, that's, and so then for you to really have
15:38 to chart this course, to fight back,
15:42 one step at a time, one rep at a time,
15:44 to get back to where, no, I am not accepting that
15:49 as the final answer, you know?
15:51 - There's a fire in your eye when you talk about that,
15:53 'cause I think you actually like the challenge.
15:55 You don't like the situation, but the challenge.
15:58 - Here's what's amazing.
15:59 What's amazing is that at the moment
16:01 that these things are happening,
16:03 everybody can point to these things in their life,
16:05 you say to yourself, "God, this is the worst thing
16:07 "ever could happen," right?
16:08 Why?
16:09 You know, and you allow yourself a little pity party
16:11 for a little while, right?
16:13 Which that's okay, but at some point,
16:14 you gotta flip the switch.
16:16 You gotta chart the course, right?
16:18 You gotta trust the process, and you just gotta go at it
16:22 with everything you got.
16:23 And then it's amazing when you get past all that, right?
16:28 All the blood, sweat, tears, and then you're back,
16:31 and you look back, and you say to yourself,
16:34 "That's probably the best thing that ever happened," right?
16:36 Or else I would not have gained that strength,
16:40 or that belief system, or that faith,
16:43 or realized that, or recognized that,
16:46 or appreciated that, developed that gratitude.
16:49 Whatever it might be, I think these attributes,
16:53 these traits are developed as a result.
16:57 And you then have the opportunity
17:00 to accomplish the level of success
17:02 that you never would have been able to accomplish
17:04 had you not gone through what you went through.
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18:02 - And so it is necessary.
18:07 - Mm-hmm, it's a necessary part.
18:10 - Okay, now you flip the mindset.
18:11 Like adversity, thank you.
18:14 Like yes, I want it.
18:17 Like I will embrace it.
18:18 You hear these special force military guys
18:24 saying like embrace the suck, right?
18:25 Yes, it's gonna suck.
18:27 It's gonna be hard.
18:28 It's designed to make you quit, right?
18:31 But at the end of the day, you have to embrace it.
18:33 You gotta love it, right?
18:35 - You gotta find the love in it.
18:36 - You gotta psychologically trick yourself
18:37 and say, nah, I love this.
18:38 - You gotta find the love in it.
18:39 - Right, exactly, right?
18:41 And that's actually, I was told,
18:45 'cause towards the end of my football career,
18:47 I had a lot of, I would seek out guys to talk about,
18:50 hey, when did you know it was the end?
18:54 Or what were the feelings?
18:55 What were the emotions?
18:56 How did you go through that?
18:57 And one of the things that was told to me,
18:59 I thought this was very accurate,
19:01 was it's time to retire when you no longer
19:05 really like love the grind.
19:10 'Cause look, everybody loves game day, right?
19:11 Everybody loves the feeling of running out of the tunnel.
19:13 Everybody loves the feeling of throwing the game
19:14 when you touchdown, the time in the locker room,
19:16 all that stuff.
19:17 But do you really love getting up early every day
19:21 and your body really hurts and you don't wanna do
19:25 what you gotta go do in the weight room
19:27 or on the practice field or whatever,
19:28 battle through that injury or going to the training room
19:31 or sit there and grind on film for hours and hours, right?
19:34 Miss out on all this time with your family.
19:36 You have to find the love in that, right?
19:40 Or the satisfaction in knowing that
19:43 that is what's helping you earn Sunday, right?
19:46 Like we would talk about that a lot,
19:48 is why do you go through that process?
19:50 Why do you go through that grind?
19:51 You go through that grind to earn Sunday, right?
19:53 To earn that feeling of satisfaction when you go out
19:55 and you can execute some to perfection, right?
19:58 So you have to find the love in the grind,
20:04 find the love in the adversity.
20:06 I've always felt like adversity equals opportunity though.
20:08 And you should embrace it when it happens.
20:12 - It's the best time to find opportunity
20:14 'cause when there's no adversity,
20:16 there's nothing to differentiate.
20:18 Everyone's the same.
20:19 So I have one last question about,
20:20 I have one last question revolving around
20:24 your football career simply because I think that
20:26 there's one moment in your career I wanna talk about.
20:29 We always talk about the worst days
20:31 when you're injured yourself and you think your dream's
20:32 being pulled away because something catastrophic happened.
20:36 Those ones, a lot of people experience.
20:38 But one that I don't think we talk about enough
20:40 is when our dream almost gets crushed,
20:43 when things aren't broken and maybe we're on the rise,
20:46 but something else is happening.
20:47 And so the year before you injured yourself in San Diego,
20:51 the Chargers decided to take a high draft pick
20:54 on a quarterback.
20:55 You were picked in the second round.
20:56 A couple years later, they used their first round pick
20:58 on another gentleman.
21:01 And there's obviously a reason they did that
21:03 and it was not one that probably made you feel very good.
21:06 The writing might've been on the wall.
21:07 Maybe you had thoughts of, are they replacing me?
21:09 'Cause why would you use such a high draft pick?
21:12 And you weren't injured yet.
21:13 And I wanna ask you about this because in business and life,
21:16 sometimes things are going our way
21:19 and then something else happens
21:20 and we didn't tear our shoulder.
21:22 How did you feel the day,
21:23 and I don't mean this negatively towards any individual,
21:25 but just as a person, how did you feel that day
21:28 when the Chargers drafted Phillip Rivers
21:30 and you're the quarterback and now you have this guy
21:32 who maybe there's a controversy created
21:36 that shouldn't have been or didn't need to be?
21:38 How did you overcome that to put your focus
21:41 on what needed to get done and still earn Sunday
21:43 that next week?
21:45 - Yeah.
21:46 Well, look, at the time, it was very frustrating
21:49 'cause at the time, I was sitting here saying to myself,
21:53 well, first off, I knew they were gonna do it.
21:55 I came in, so I came to the Chargers in 2001.
22:00 I backed up Doug Flutie in 2001.
22:02 2002, I competed with Doug Flutie and I won the job.
22:06 So I started all the '02 season.
22:08 2003 was the year that, man, we were supposed to be,
22:11 like we were an ascending team, right?
22:14 Chargers were one and 15 there before we got there.
22:17 Flutie had him five and 11.
22:18 I had him eight and eight.
22:19 So like, here we are, we're trending up, right?
22:21 Here we are.
22:22 This is our year, 2003, when with all these expectations,
22:25 man, we just, we fell flat.
22:27 And look, I played bad.
22:29 I'd say a lot of people didn't really step up
22:32 to the level that we needed.
22:33 And the worse that it got,
22:35 the more pressure I put on myself.
22:37 And I'm beginning to really press.
22:39 And the more I pressed, the worse things got.
22:42 Start to lose confidence.
22:43 I get benched three times, right?
22:45 I'd never been benched in my life.
22:47 I get benched three times.
22:49 Man, like, man, my confidence was--
22:51 - The media is killing you.
22:52 - Media is killing me.
22:53 I got players in the locker room saying
22:55 that they'd rather have Doug Flutie starting.
22:57 I mean, like, all this dysfunction, right?
23:01 So man, that was one of the toughest things
23:04 I've ever had to go through within my career
23:06 because that had nothing to do with--
23:08 - An injury. - Like an injury
23:08 or whatever.
23:09 That was, you are not good enough, right?
23:12 And it's hard to hear that.
23:14 But you have to kind of take the same approach,
23:17 which is, all right, well, how do I rectify this?
23:20 How do I fix this?
23:21 - Do you remember what you did?
23:23 - Like, I absolutely do.
23:24 Well, going into, '03 season ends,
23:27 and I remember, look, man, I had had some knockout,
23:33 drag out, screaming matches with Marty Schottenheimer
23:37 during that year 'cause he was the one
23:39 who benched me three times.
23:41 Now, at the time, hurt my ego.
23:44 Later on, I look back and say,
23:47 best thing that ever happened to me, right?
23:49 It's gonna be a common theme here, right?
23:51 At the time, feel sorry for yourself, make excuses.
23:54 Later on, you say, damn right, I needed that, right?
23:58 Forced me to toughen up a little bit.
24:01 So I remember going into Marty's office,
24:05 and Marty basically said,
24:06 "I think that you are good enough,
24:11 "and you have it in you to be the starting quarterback
24:15 "for this team for a very long time,
24:16 "be the leader of this team.
24:18 "There are those in this organization
24:20 "that do not feel that way,
24:22 "and so I am telling you, they are gonna go out,
24:25 "and they are going to either sign a free agent quarterback,
24:28 "or they are gonna go draft somebody really high."
24:30 And that '04 draft was a big quarterback draft, right?
24:33 It was Eli Manning, it was Philip Rivers,
24:34 Ben Roethlisberger.
24:36 So this is gonna happen,
24:38 and so this is what you have to deal with.
24:40 This is what you're up against.
24:42 You kind of have this split in this organization.
24:45 There are those that believe,
24:46 and then there's those that have written you off, right?
24:49 So I knew that regardless, I'm gonna have to compete.
24:54 Now, would you really want it any other way?
24:56 - No.
24:57 - And once you get to a certain level,
24:59 like you are always having to compete.
25:01 You're just, you're wired that way anyway,
25:03 but at the end of the day--
25:04 - Yeah, you'll manufacture who to compete with
25:06 if it's not given to you.
25:06 - Well, when you think about it like this too,
25:07 is the moment,
25:10 what one of my college coaches used to tell me,
25:13 "As long as you are green, you will continue to grow.
25:16 "As soon as you are ripe, you will soon be rotten."
25:18 In other words, you are always thinking
25:20 about how you can improve.
25:21 You're constant skill development, right?
25:23 Like what more can I learn, right?
25:25 Whether it's in the realm of exactly what I'm doing
25:27 or just something that might help me
25:31 with something down the road that,
25:32 it's just another skill set, right?
25:34 I just want to develop another skill set that can help.
25:37 That, you're always thinking
25:40 that they're trying to replace you.
25:41 Like you really have to have that mindset.
25:43 If I just stay the same, right?
25:46 It's either you're getting better, you're getting worse,
25:47 you're never staying the same.
25:48 If I'm just complacent here, you know,
25:51 and just thinking that I've arrived and that I'm okay
25:53 and that we're just cruising,
25:55 like that's a bad place to be.
25:58 You know, you always are thinking about like,
26:00 what's around the corner, right?
26:01 What's coming next?
26:02 How can we improve?
26:03 Like what do we need?
26:04 Like people are coming after us.
26:05 When we would go and watch our film every year
26:08 at the end of a year where we finished number one
26:10 in offense with the New Orleans Saints,
26:12 it was always like, everybody's stealing our stuff.
26:14 Everybody's copying us.
26:14 Every defense is watching us.
26:16 Like how are we evolving?
26:17 How are we staying ahead of the curve?
26:18 We always want to be the ones that they're like,
26:20 dang, what are the Saints up to now, right?
26:22 It's not like, hey, we're just happy sitting back
26:24 where we were last year.
26:25 So look, I learned a lot of that from this moment,
26:29 you know, where, hey,
26:30 I knew they were going to bring somebody in.
26:32 I knew I had to improve.
26:33 And so I just, I made the decision then
26:35 that I am going to do everything I can
26:37 to create every edge possible.
26:40 I already had a pretty big chip on my shoulder.
26:42 This would create a giant chip on my shoulder.
26:45 But I'm going to look at my sleep habits.
26:47 I'm going to look at my diet.
26:48 I'm going to look at my training.
26:49 I'm going to look at my recovery.
26:51 Like I'm going to look at everything
26:53 and I'm going to try to learn different skill sets,
26:56 seek out mentors that can really help teach me,
26:59 you know, these things and create a path,
27:01 create a process by which I can go out
27:04 and prove to my teammates, right?
27:07 'Cause I kind of had to rewind their trust
27:10 and their confidence.
27:13 And for the next, you know, six to eight months,
27:16 that off season, it was one of these things
27:19 where it's like, I can only worry about things
27:21 I can control too, right?
27:23 I can be as upset as I want that they're going to go
27:25 and use the fourth pick of the draft
27:26 to go draft a quarterback.
27:28 Now I did come out, I think I spouted off
27:30 and I was like, they should have drafted an all line,
27:33 right?
27:33 Or they should have drafted a--
27:34 - But you were a kid.
27:35 - I said, they should have drafted a left tackle for me.
27:38 Right?
27:39 I'm the starting quarterback.
27:40 But at the end of the day, I knew that like,
27:42 if I worked and I mapped out the process and the plan
27:46 and then I went out and executed it
27:47 and I showed up day one,
27:49 and I knew that day one I had to do something
27:53 that would let my teammates know
27:56 that I believed that I was their guy, right?
28:00 And--
28:01 - What'd you do?
28:02 - So I came in, I came in the very first meeting.
28:05 I asked Marty, I said, can I get 10 minutes
28:07 with the team after you're done?
28:09 He said, sure.
28:10 So he kind of gave his intro and then he said,
28:13 hey, Drew wants to speak to you.
28:15 And he left the room and I passed out goal sheets.
28:19 I had top five goals for us as a team,
28:22 top five goals for us as an offense,
28:24 top five personal goals.
28:25 And I put them in front of every guy.
28:27 I said, hey guys, if we,
28:30 I said, we're gonna accomplish great things this year.
28:32 I said, but we need to have,
28:33 we need to create that path for ourselves.
28:35 And then we need to hold ourselves accountable for this.
28:37 So what I want all of us to do right now
28:39 is I want us to put down our top five goals as a team.
28:42 And then I want us to break out offense, defense.
28:44 Offense, we're gonna come up with our top five goals,
28:46 defense, top five goals.
28:47 And then look at those individual goals
28:50 and set those individual goals
28:51 that are gonna help us accomplish those offensive goals,
28:54 those team goals.
28:55 And we went through it.
28:57 And I'd already had a list of things
28:59 that I felt like should be our goals,
29:01 but I wanted it to be a collaboration.
29:03 'Cause if guys, if it comes out of their mouth,
29:06 then they gotta own it, right?
29:08 And they have to become accountable to it.
29:10 So it gave other guys the opportunity
29:11 to maybe just verbalize things
29:13 that they otherwise wouldn't have verbalized.
29:15 And I didn't wanna leave anything up for chance.
29:17 I didn't wanna leave anything up for assumption, right?
29:20 Like, hey, this is our team.
29:21 Like, what are we trying to accomplish, right?
29:23 Goal number one, right?
29:24 Well, yeah, we're trying to win a Super Bowl.
29:25 Okay, well, in order to do that, what do we have to do?
29:27 Okay, in order to do that, what do we have to do?
29:29 In order to do that, what do we have to do, right?
29:30 So you just set these short-term goals
29:31 in order to achieve the big one.
29:33 But nobody had ever done that before.
29:38 I'd never done that before with a team.
29:40 I'd always set my own goals,
29:42 but I felt like when all of a sudden guys came together
29:45 and they had to put their heads together
29:46 and then really put something on paper
29:48 and then therefore commit to it, be accountable to it,
29:51 I think it said a lot.
29:53 - Well, I mean, that was a pivotal moment in your career
29:55 and in business.
29:56 I mean, that doesn't just translate to on a football field.
29:59 Those kinds of situations happen in companies.
30:02 I can have the greatest company in the world,
30:04 things are going my way.
30:05 And then to your point, everyone's watching,
30:07 someone builds a little bit better widget or better service,
30:10 takes what I'm doing and ups it, can happen to anyone.
30:12 So I think that those moments when,
30:14 yeah, when the catastrophe happens,
30:15 you go bankrupt, the company fails,
30:17 those are the big lessons.
30:18 But how you pick yourself up
30:19 when you're actually still in the fight,
30:21 but the odds are stacked against you
30:22 and you have to overcome
30:23 and have that self-confidence, self-belief.
30:25 And those are the moments that translate.
30:27 And it's a good segue to your post-career.
30:29 Being a quarterback,
30:31 you were kind of the CEO of a football team.
30:33 So I think you've honed those CEO skills,
30:35 being the chief executive officer of the Chargers
30:38 and the Saints and high school and Purdue.
30:40 Then you go into the business world.
30:42 And I'll say to you,
30:45 having known you now for about five years,
30:47 four or five years,
30:48 my favorite thing when I talk to you
30:51 is the level of detail you bring to the conversation
30:55 from conversations we've had about
30:56 whether it's Everbol, Rebuild,
30:58 any business thing we've talked about.
31:00 You bring a very specific view
31:04 where you remember the small minor details,
31:06 which I'm sure honed from the NFL,
31:09 but it's awesome as a leader myself
31:10 because I find myself being challenged
31:13 in our conversations in a positive way.
31:15 And you force me to think much more detail-oriented.
31:19 So that's a prelude to how you bring,
31:24 'cause you can't turn it off, right?
31:25 You are you, right?
31:26 So you see the world the way you see it
31:28 and you're used to football.
31:29 How you bring that same level of dedication,
31:32 commitment, and passion to something
31:34 that doesn't necessarily have the same stakes as the NFL.
31:38 I mean, when you started with me and Everbol,
31:39 we were much smaller.
31:41 Obviously, we're bigger now
31:42 where things are exciting and growing.
31:44 But when I had conversations with you,
31:46 I could see the passion in your eye then.
31:47 You were talking to me like we were talking
31:48 about the Super Bowl,
31:50 but this was an Everbol
31:51 and we were talking about something very small in the store,
31:53 like how to change the menu.
31:55 I mean, something very minute.
31:57 How are you able to bring that level of detail
32:01 from the NFL now into your business world
32:03 and to things that are less,
32:05 meaningful is not the right word,
32:07 but less magnitude, smaller magnitude?
32:11 - So one of my mentors has said to me many times,
32:17 "The way you do anything is the way you do everything."
32:19 - I love that line.
32:20 - So I've always taken that to heart with everything.
32:25 And look, when you're wired a certain way,
32:28 that is just the way you do it, right?
32:30 Like I still carry a spiral notebook with me
32:35 wherever I go.
32:36 And I am an old traditional note taker, right?
32:39 Like I'm a pencil and paper note taker.
32:42 And I have this process of taking the notes
32:46 'cause I was always taught
32:47 that you are gonna remember, right?
32:50 50% more of what you write down versus just what you hear.
32:54 And then I will go back and study it.
32:57 And then many cases I will take that
32:59 and I will have a conversation with my wife
33:01 where I actually teach, right?
33:03 Or we're sitting at the dinner table
33:05 and strike up a conversation with the kids
33:07 and then teach what I wrote down from that day,
33:11 what I studied, what I researched,
33:13 the conversation that I had, an enlightening moment, right?
33:16 And I think there's this formula
33:19 that you remember 10% of what you hear,
33:21 50% of what you write down, 90% of what you teach, right?
33:24 So this idea that, man,
33:25 if I want something to be sticky, right?
33:26 If I want it to be,
33:27 then this is the approach I have to take.
33:29 And it's just, so going back from when I was a kid,
33:32 taking notes to college, to pros,
33:35 and even now in the business world, right?
33:36 That's just a habit.
33:38 It's a habit that I feel like has been effective for me
33:42 and it really helps me retain.
33:44 But again, it's also something
33:49 that really invigorates me.
33:51 It helps me keep that attention to detail.
33:55 And honestly, when I think about every situation,
34:00 and I'll start with the realm of sports,
34:05 but in high school,
34:06 my high school had never won a state championship, right?
34:08 So we were embarking on doing something
34:10 that had never been done before.
34:12 And we did, we accomplished it, right?
34:13 I go to Purdue University
34:14 and we were bottom of the barrel, right?
34:17 Last place in the Big 10 in football,
34:19 ranked dead last recruiting class.
34:22 And we all looked at each other and said,
34:23 by the time we leave here, we're gonna be Big 10 champions.
34:25 Guess what?
34:26 By the time we left, we were Big 10 champions, right?
34:28 You arrive in the NFL and it's like,
34:30 okay, well, what's the pinnacle of this?
34:31 Well, it's to go win a Super Bowl, right?
34:33 And here's New Orleans, right?
34:35 Post-Katrina, 90% of the city underwater, right?
34:38 Like people have been displaced, complete devastation.
34:41 The team's been displaced, right?
34:43 All of a sudden you're coming back
34:44 and you're having to rebuild
34:45 and you're gonna go and you're gonna accomplish something
34:46 that's never been done before, right?
34:48 And you do it.
34:49 So at the end of the day,
34:50 that's what I set out to do.
34:54 I wanna be involved with great people.
34:56 I wanna be involved with great organizations
34:58 and great brands that have the opportunity
35:00 to be the best in class,
35:02 to build a great reputation,
35:05 and to go do something that's never been done before.
35:08 And that takes attention to detail.
35:10 But it's also what brings a ton of excitement, right?
35:13 Is that every day is like,
35:16 what are we gonna learn today?
35:17 Like what journey are we embarking on today?
35:19 What goal are we gonna set or go tackle today, right?
35:23 And with that end goal and envision in mind,
35:25 and it's not a matter of if, it's when.
35:28 - Yes.
35:29 Hey there, it's your host, Jeff Fenster,
35:30 and I have something very exciting to share with you today.
35:33 You know, here on the Jeff Fenster Show,
35:35 we're all about growth,
35:36 both personally and professionally.
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35:41 As the proud founder of Everbole,
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36:21 - Yes, that's, I couldn't agree with that statement,
36:25 that last statement anymore,
36:26 because that was the biggest pivot for me,
36:29 was when I stopped putting a timeline.
36:31 My goals and my successes changed dramatically in my life
36:34 when I stopped realizing I used to be,
36:36 I need it by tomorrow.
36:38 I need it by a month from now.
36:39 If I'm not this by a month from now, I failed.
36:42 When you take that time away, it changes from if to when.
36:46 'Cause you will win.
36:48 It may take you 12 years to win that Super Bowl
36:50 or 14 years to win that Super Bowl,
36:52 but you keep doing the right things.
36:54 - Yeah, good things happen.
36:55 - Good things will happen.
36:56 So I think the last question I really wanted to ask you,
37:01 and it's about business, is you obviously have,
37:05 we know how you pick the brands you work with.
37:07 We know that you'll be successful in whatever you do
37:10 because you follow that proven model.
37:12 But if you could see, if you could talk to yourself
37:17 10 years ago, 20 years ago,
37:18 knowing what you know now,
37:20 is there something that you would change?
37:23 And I know not the lessons or the failures,
37:25 but is there something you would change
37:27 with who you became in the business world
37:30 that if you can go back, you would say,
37:31 "Hey, you know what?
37:32 "This is what I've learned over the last,
37:34 "we'll say two, three years, that you realized,
37:36 "hey, maybe it was a little bit something
37:37 "you need to be humble about,
37:38 "something you needed to change as Drew."
37:41 Because opportunities get thrown at you.
37:43 I mean, you're obviously Drew Brees.
37:45 You come with a level of track record
37:48 and people want your brand, they want you,
37:50 they want your brain, they want your relationships.
37:52 So maybe there isn't something like a minute detail,
37:56 but is there one thing that if you can go back 10 years,
38:00 you would have changed that would have altered
38:01 the whole business side of you now?
38:04 - Well, I'd say this.
38:07 I mean, I was, I'm 44 years old.
38:10 I've been retired for two years.
38:11 So look at my, if you look at those first 42 years,
38:17 28 of those were dedicated to being the best football player
38:20 I could possibly be, right?
38:21 Like if you go four years of high school,
38:23 four years of college, 20 years in the NFL, right?
38:25 So two thirds of my life was where my full-time job was,
38:30 hey, like each and every day I'm waking up
38:32 and it's like, what am I doing to train?
38:33 What am I doing to recover?
38:34 What am I doing to help a teammate?
38:35 What am I doing to get better myself?
38:37 What am I doing, right?
38:38 And then obviously I've got my family
38:40 and I've got some of the other business stuff
38:41 I'm trying to build.
38:42 But at the end of the day, like that was,
38:44 I was trying to master being the very best quarterback
38:48 that I could be, right?
38:49 So I, even though I learned so much from that,
38:53 that can be applied to the business world,
38:56 I still, you know, when I retired,
38:58 I felt like, man, I'm behind, man, I gotta catch up.
39:00 I mean, really, like there's that feeling.
39:03 Had I not had a football career, right?
39:08 And I was kind of starting from scratch, you know,
39:11 fresh out of college or wherever, right?
39:13 And I'm sitting there like, man,
39:14 I wanna learn about business, right?
39:16 Like I wanna, first off, find mentors, right?
39:20 Find mentors and just glean everything you can from them.
39:24 Right?
39:26 The other thing is,
39:27 seek to experience every job that you could possibly have
39:34 within the framework of a business, right?
39:38 Even the stuff that just totally sucks, right?
39:41 Or that is just like, you know, you,
39:43 what are these shows, you know, that you're watching
39:45 that are like, you know, like worst jobs ever, right?
39:48 Like-- - Dirty jokes.
39:49 - Yeah, yeah, exactly.
39:50 Like do, because even though that's not necessarily the job
39:55 that you're planning to do for the rest of your life,
39:58 it is a job that will teach you a skillset
40:02 or a component within a department, right?
40:06 Something that is gonna be valuable for you
40:09 when all added up, it's gonna equal the position
40:13 that you really want, right?
40:15 Or that title that you really want or that accomplishment
40:17 or like that building that brand or that company
40:20 or whatever it is.
40:21 So it's just, it's, again, it's a bit of this growth mindset
40:24 but it's understanding that, yes, here's the end game,
40:27 right, but then here are all the little pieces,
40:31 all the little skillsets, all the little things.
40:33 And again, I go back to this traits and attributes.
40:35 Like I need to develop these traits, these attributes,
40:38 these skillsets, right?
40:39 And so how do I do that?
40:40 Well, if I do this job for a while,
40:42 that's gonna help me gain that, right?
40:44 And I need to be in accounting, right?
40:47 Like I need that background, right?
40:49 I need, man, I need that marketing, right?
40:50 I need, like just add them all up
40:53 and that's gonna equate to the skillset of this person
40:56 that I'm striving to be.
40:57 - Yeah, karate kid.
40:59 - That's right.
41:00 - Just keep doing it.
41:01 (laughing)
41:02 - Well, Jude, thank you for coming on today, man.
41:04 Thank you for sharing what makes you successful
41:07 because you've done it at the highest level
41:09 and you're still doing it at the highest level.
41:11 Now you are entering a different arena.
41:13 I mean, going from football to the business world,
41:16 it's different.
41:17 It's got its own set of challenges.
41:18 And as you said, that feeling of I'm behind
41:22 and that thirst is bringing it every day.
41:23 And it's been a pleasure to work alongside you
41:25 and have you as a part of our team
41:27 and your mind helping us shape Everbolt
41:29 and we building all the things we're trying to do
41:32 and all the other brands you're part of.
41:33 And so I wanted to thank you
41:34 because I think our audience is gonna learn a lot
41:36 about those attributes and traits from you
41:39 and what they need to work on
41:40 because, and I think we talked about it before,
41:42 but the whole purpose of my show is success is formulaic.
41:45 And it's not what we do.
41:47 It's not the, oh, I'm a good football player.
41:50 There's lots of good football players.
41:51 There's probably better quarterbacks than you physically,
41:53 have better arms, but there were things that they didn't do
41:56 that you were doing, which separated you.
41:58 And that's true in business.
41:59 It's true in life.
42:00 I know I'm gonna be successful whatever I strive to do
42:03 because I follow a certain success formula.
42:06 You just defined yours in a lot of different examples today.
42:09 And so if you're listening,
42:10 I just wanna make sure that you guys are defining
42:11 that core values that you're gonna live off of,
42:13 that success formula, like Drew did with his football team.
42:17 Define your goals, define that plan,
42:19 start at the end, work backwards,
42:20 know what you're gonna do, win the day.
42:22 You win enough days in a row, you win it all.
42:24 So thank you, Drew, for coming on, man.
42:25 This was fun. - I like it.
42:26 It was awesome.
42:27 Thanks, Jeff.
42:28 Thank you all for tuning in.
42:31 I wanna give a huge shout out
42:32 to our amazing sponsor, Entrepreneur,
42:35 for partnering with us to help get this show
42:37 to as many people as possible.
42:39 Go check out our article on the episode
42:41 at entrepreneur.com or by clicking the link
42:44 in the show notes below.
42:45 See you on the next one.
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