Will, you were enshrined into the football Hall of Fame with the Class of 2015. And, you never missed a game in your entire 14-year career as a guard for the Kansas City Chiefs. You played an amazing 224 straight games—the second longest streak in the NFL behind Brett Farve of the Green Bay Packers; you started all but one of those games, earned 12 straight Pro Bowls, won four division titles, made 6 playoff appearances and were named to the NFL “ALL Decade Team” of the 2000’s. Will, tell us about where your journey to Canton began while growing up in a small town?
It began in Lawton, Oklahoma. Really, before that. I was born in Fort Riley, Kansas and then, raised in Lawton, Oklahoma. But, I think it was the basis of being part of a military community. My dad was in the military from the beginning, so it built up from there as far as, “Hey, get up early, get a lot of things done.” If you’re not up by 7 o’clock in the morning, you’ve wasted half the day. At that point, it set the tone for everything else that you wanted to do.
My brother and sister, both, at that point, had paper routes and things of that nature, when I was growing up, so I’ve inherited that. That’s where you learn that work mentality of, “You’ve got to get up early, you’ve got to get things done.” If you’re not working on a consistent basis, you’re not accomplishing everything. That was where it started and built up from there.
Then, going into high school, I didn’t know what was going to happen after high school. Trying to figure out what was going to be next and where I was going to end up. I didn’t look at colleges as far as going to play football or anything else of that nature. Our sophomore year, they came out with an article—local kids that could play at the next division. At that point, you made the list. You’re, like, “Wow!” I can actually play football and they’ll pay for your school and give you an opportunity to move forward from there. At that point, schools start looking at us. We had a junior year that was amazing. We ended up winning our state championship, and our coaches set us up for positive things by putting different historical things in front of us to give us things to look forward to, to work for.
One of them was the mantra of what our high school was. A small town in Oklahoma, we had three high schools so we weren’t as small as some high schools. We had a mantra—“Hanta Yo” which was—“Clear the Way” [native American origin]. That was our casting call of what we wanted to do as we kept going forward and trying to grow within that. If you’re not paving the way, you’re clearing the way for the next path of people to come after you.
At one time, we had—I think it was 1962 or ’63 where we had won, pretty much, every state championship that could be won. They brought that back and they called us “The Home of Champions”. It set a mind-set of what you wanted to be and how you wanted to get to the next level and do different things.
For me, it was, hey, I just want to get to college, graduate and figure out what’s going to happen next. But, the opportunity came–I wanted to see if I’d be prepared for the next level. At that point, I ended up getting a scholarship to the University of Nebraska, going there for four years, graduated because I wanted to make sure I had my degree, if I got an opportunity to play at the next level. I got drafted in the third round for the Kansas City Chiefs—got an opportunity to play in the first game because one of the guards got hurt. The left guard got hurt and they moved me into the right guard spot and moved that guy over. The rest, as they say, is history.
I got an opportunity to show that I could play at the next level and, once I got there, I never relented until I decided to move on and start working towards starting a business in the business world.
Will, before you entered the NFL in 1993, what were some of the important values you learned from your high school and college coaches that helped you become successful in the NFL?
One thing that’s really cool is diversity—figuring out how to do different things, which is what I learned as part of this—it wasn’t just my coaches. I had music teachers, so I did a lot of vocal music. And, I had music teachers for kindergarten all the way through. Each one of those had influences on me; you can turn on the switch and perform, and still be a quiet, introverted kid off the stage.
That is where you could flip the switch. Hey, out there, you’ve got to do this, this and this, but then, you can still be calm and reserved when you’re off. I had music teachers that helped mold me as far as—you can do things that are outside the norms. Even though you love the game of football, you can also do other things. That helped me grow and see a bigger, wider world than just—football is the only way to do different things and get out of different situations. I had teachers that helped with right or wrong, parents that were strong, and then, I had coaches that taught me how to have positive relationships with young men and help them develop into what they wanted to become.
Still, today, I talk to my high school offensive line coach once every two to three months. I talk to my dad every week. Coach Osborne, who was my college coach, was a great mentor. He showed that being an athlete made a little difference in, not only your life, but in others’ lives because people celebrated that day. That was an opportunity to be a part of something bigger than what you are. And, you are just a cog in it. But, on the other hand, you can make a difference. You can make a difference in people’s lives.
At that point, Coach Osborne started the Teammates Program, which is a mentoring program for kids in Lincoln. He had told these kids—you graduate from high school and you want to go to college, as long as you stay out of trouble and do X, Y and Z, I’ll make sure that happens. And, he did it for free—that they were going to go to school.
That started me on the path of what we wanted to do off the field—to be able to help others. That’s when we got an opportunity to—when I graduated and got drafted to the Chiefs—to start The Will To Succeed Foundation that works with battered and abused women and children here in the Kansas City area.
One does not become a member of the Hall of Fame on talent alone. You need the internal drive to do the work and overcome the challenges faced in the NFL to consistently perform at a high level. What drove you every day to become one of the best that has ever played the game?
What drove me is that I love the game. I love every little nuance of it. I loved training camp. Training camp didn’t bother me at all. I looked forward to training camp. There was a movie called the, “Highlander.” When somebody would kill somebody, they would call it the “quickening.” They would gain somebody else’s power. I felt like I went through the quickening—what we call the “J Months,” the “Quickening Months”—June and July, because in August is when all the football began.
Every day I would start to eat, sleep and drink football to the point where I’m dreaming of football plays while I’m asleep at night, so when it came time to get ready for camp, you couldn’t help but be excited. The opportunity to compete at a higher level and not even think about the simple fact that you’re not the biggest, the strongest or the fastest person out there, but it’s the opportunity to be able to compete at a high level and to test yourself. The modern-day gladiator piece of saying, “I’m going to try to be the best I can be and I want to see who can best me on that day.”
What do you consider to be the most important principles of success that guided you throughout your Hall of Fame career?
There’s a lot of little nuances that come along. If you look at the pillars of what the Hall of Fame stands for, those are great pillars. It’s what you try to do as a young person—you strive for excellence. You want to be the best you can be. But, you also have humility while you do it. You also understand, you have to have a commitment of how much will you give up of yourself to be as good as you want to be.
Some of us had to give up a lot. Whether it’s friends, relationships, things of that nature. While everyone else is hanging out and doing other stuff, some of us that are not as talented as others are working on our craft or studying film. That extra hour of being able to pick things apart. Those are things that you have to commit to be able to do it, and they are the little nuances that make you a little bit better than everyone else. Some guys are just gifted. They’re talented people that can go out there, any given day, and just be more dominant than others. I wish I was one of those guys, but that never happened.
But, I did find that to be consistent is one thing that’s the key. As long as you’re consistent on a regular basis, that’s one thing—you know what you’re going to get day-in-and-day-out—that makes life a little easier.
Will, you have spoken about the being accountable to your fellow teammates which is important to both success in the NFL and also in business. Why is being accountable so important to success?
The thing of it is, if you’re accountable that means nobody has to second guess what’s going to happen. They know exactly what you can do, they know exactly how you’re going to perform and they know you’re going to be there. That, to me, is the most important piece—is being able to know that you’re going to be there day-in-and-day-out, doing what you’re supposed to do.
What makes it hard is that person that shows up late, that’s not ready to perform, that doesn’t understand what their little nuances are—because then, you’re always looking for somebody to replace them. That’s the hard part. That’s where we get lost in that transition of—are you going to be here, today, or are you not? We’re looking for that person that’s going to be there. They may not be the best person for that position, but if they’re there on a consistent basis, you know exactly what you’re going to get out of it and you know you can work with that. Which is what you want to do in any kind of job that you do. You want to leave it better than what it was when you got there, but you want to be there on a consistent basis so they know they can count on you.
Will, you started the Dump Truck Academy for Offensive and Defensive Lineman and have been quoted as saying, “You are either driving the truck or being driven.” The same can be said for success in business. You are either in the power position to be pro-active where you have more control over your business or you are constantly having to react to what other people are doing. What are some of the principles you teach in the Dump Truck Academy that have a parallel to success in business?
If you look at business and you look at the Dump Truck Academy within itself, it comes down to the angles. Being able to find the right angles to get from point A to point B faster than someone else. As long as you can do that, you can build your business up and build the football up in the same way.
You don’t have to be the biggest, strongest and fastest, you’ve just got to be the smartest. You’ve got to know how to get to where you want to go, but you can’t be left behind. That means you’ve got to be constantly looking for a better angle.
Some people say, if you get from point A to point B the same time, the same way, doesn’t that make it efficient? Yeah, it does but, if I’m always looking for a way to get there faster, then I can always cut a little second off of this or a little more time off of that. That’s what you look for as far as building up a business. How can you create the best system in place to make everyone better?
I tell my kids the same thing. How can they do the same thing? You might not be the fastest kid in the world, but I know, if I take that left step and right step and I plant that foot right where it is, I’ll have more power to get movement. Or, I’m going to take that step and move that way just to make you move this way and use your own force against you to get you to go further than you want to go.
That’s another part of business, it’s being able to have foresight and look and have vision. But, also, you have to have that time to reflect on your own and look at your business, tear it apart and go, “Where am I deficient?” That’s the hard part; it’s saying I do have deficiencies and I need to make these areas stronger. That’s where you go with—you’re either driving or being driven—because, if you’re not able to drive the truck and figure out where it’s going, then somebody else is carrying you along. But, you’re hoping the team that you have around you has figured out other little pieces and nuances.
When I first started, I didn’t know how to pass protect that well—protect the quarterback. What I would do is, I would sit and watch other guys and take little pieces of their game and go—I think I can do what he’s doing there, but I can’t do what that’s guy’s doing here, but I can do this. So I’m taking bits and pieces of other people’s games and creating my own style of it. That’s what helped me be able to transition faster than most, because I was able to see what other people are doing, emulate it and use it to my advantage.
In 1993 you started the Will to Succeed Foundation and in 2003 you were the recipient of the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award for the work you have done with your foundation. Tell us why you started the foundation and the values that shape its mission?
The Will to Succeed—we wanted to do something in the community. First and foremost, I came to the Kansas City Chiefs and I’m watching all these guys that are before me. There were 16 or 17 guys that had foundations and they were doing things in the community. What I noticed about each one of these guys is, they had longevity. They had been here, they had put roots in here and they were working toward a bigger goal, not only on the field, but off the field because they were building a solid foundation for the community in itself. I wanted to be one of those guys.
I said, you know what, from day one, I want to start a foundation, I want to build something that’s bigger than what you can do and leave that same legacy to let people know that I’m here for the long haul. I want to be here as a person that’s setting goals and different agendas for what we can do in the community to make our community better. Consider it our community, from day one, and not, necessarily, me being a visitor here and then, being gone six months, a year or two years later.
That’s what made me start it, but Coach Osborne and his philanthropic things that he had done when we were in college—I got a chance to be around him and see the impact of an offensive lineman going to give a speech to kids that were fourth and fifth grade—not knowing that they just love you because you’re a Husker, but they connected with you because some of the stories you told, they’re living now. They didn’t know how they would get through them—they’re saying, “You made it through them so why can’t I.” That’s the hope. That’s the understanding that you’re not alone with some of the situations or issues, or anything that you’re dealing with.
That’s the hard thing for everybody. The assumption is that we can’t let our guard down and say, “I don’t know”—or say, “I need help.” That’s one reason we have the foundation is to help everyone stand up and be able to understand, you’re not by yourself. This is an issue. These are things that we have to work with to make everyone’s life better, and it crosses every socioeconomic standpoint. That’s why we work with different groups across, not only Kansas and Missouri, but in other states and other things of that nature.
We start with simple things of building up your own self-esteem. Sometimes, it’s hard to stand alone when you’ve always been taught, you need someone else to stand up for you. That’s where it began. I was asking myself, “What thing do we need to tackle that hasn’t been tackled?” So, 25 years ago, we started the foundation and it works with battered and abused women and children. I call it my umbrella foundation because it’s expanded over time for reading, literacy and education—youth, child care, to help them learn more words, because there are kids in the inner city that are losing 200 words a day just because they’re not communicating or having a chance to talk to someone.
Those are different things that really excite me and give me the hope that we can be part of a better community and we can grow. That’s one of the main reasons that I started it is because it just makes a big difference to be a part of something bigger than yourself.
After finishing your Hall of Fame football career, you started 68’s Inside Sports. Tell us about your athletic facility and training business?
The training business is a hard business. This was one of the undertakings, for me, that’s been the most difficult. I wasn’t a business major. I graduated with a speech-communications degree, so Business 101 is one of those things I had to learn. But, being a retired football player, you don’t feel like life is over when you’re done playing football. You feel like you still have something to give. You still have stories to tell, information to give-little nuggets of things that you can pass on to the next generation.
What I wanted to do is find a place for my kids to be able to come and play, feel comfortable and learn from, but also, other children. Other people from different walks of life to be able to come in, feel comfortable and understand that we have a health crisis going on. There are people who need to understand what good nutrition is and what makes a difference. What a healthy lifestyle looks like. That’s where all of us have to learn. It took me 46 years to figure out what healthy eating was. Even though I was a professional athlete, I had no idea what healthy eating looked like or was supposed to look like until about a year ago.
Those are things that you have to share and understand that you’re not alone. There are other people that are still trying to figure that path out and trying to walk through it, but you have to give them those options. For me, that’s what this business is about. It’s not about just the athlete, it’s about—if I can make any person better and give them the opportunity to get off medication, change their lifestyle, feel better on a day-to-day basis just by coming in, sitting and talking to you—then we’ve done our job. That’s what kind of complex you want to have. You want to have it as open, as confident, and it helps people get better on a day-to-day basis. Some people just need that social interaction. I need to come to that class because there’s three people there. If I don’t show up, they’re texting me and finding out why you’re not there. Somebody that cares.
That’s another part of it. There’s all these little nuances. That’s why I gravitated to this business because it’s almost like my Foundation—to be able to help others and be a part of what is the growing field of what I do.
Will, what are some of the similarities that you see between playing in the NFL at a high level as you did throughout your career and being a business owner striving for success?
It’s a day-to-day study. That’s one thing you always learn is constant change. There’s ebb and flow. Almost, just like when you were playing, but it’s a little different because we had to watch film and critique ourselves on a day-to-day basis—just the same with the business. You have to look at what happened the day before or the day after and try to forecast what you’re planning in the future. It’s just like having yourself on a football field and being able to put together the right pieces to make it work. That’s the hard part. You’ve always been on the other side where you’ve been one of the pieces, not necessarily, one of the persons learning all the different pieces.
That’s the similarity between the businesses—trying to figure out, how do we get to that next level? How do we grow the business? How do we keep it relevant as far as what we’re doing in the community, as far as what you’re doing business-wise and everything else? Those are parallel pieces of it as far as being in the football world, and as far as being in the business world. The growth piece of it is one thing that you always have to keep continuing, and you’re going to have those bumps in the road. Our bumps in the road—as a football player—you have an injury. How do you come back from that injury?
In the fitness world—I had a program that didn’t go well and that’s the same as an injury. You’re losing that revenue while you’re not playing because you’re injured and, over here, you’ve lost that revenue because you didn’t send out enough flyers or, maybe, you didn’t get a hold of enough people, or you didn’t do enough research on certain things. It’s the same within a sense, but it’s hard to transition that mind-set until you’ve been in it. That’s what I think—the ebb and flow between the two are the same.
What are some of the principles you have brought from the NFL into the world of being an entrepreneur?
Some of the principles—teamwork is the big one that we’re trying to build here. Getting everybody on the teamwork side of it and on the same page. With me being an offensive lineman, it takes five of us to get our job done. For this business here, I’m trying to figure out how to make that ebb and flow between those five. Those five now become 30, so our front line is our offensive line for our company. I call them the front line. They’re either offense or defense. They’re either protecting the company or they’re out trying to help the company grow. They are the group that is the most important for us because they’re the first line of defense. They’re the first people you see when you walk in the door. They are the last person that you see when you leave.
That’s where we’re trying to create that synergy and trying to grow within that learning curve. For me, it’s still a learning curve to try to figure out, how do I make that all fit?
One of the things that makes a talented football player in the NFL reach their maximum potential is having excellent coaches. What are the similarities in working with our management consulting company that are like having a coach work with you when you played in the NFL?
The cool thing about having all the different people that’s come in from the company to help remold what we’re doing is that each one has a different coaching staff. To be able to see that is unique within itself. I, sometimes, talk about it when I go out to speaking engagements and give the little tidbits about—I had five different head coaches. Each one had different philosophies of how to get there and, yet, each one was very good and comparable at what they did, but you’ve still got to see the vision, you’ve got to get the buy-in, you’ve got to understand how everything fits together.
That’s what the [business consulting] coaches have done here is they’ve given me that confidence of understanding that they are a couple of different avenues that you need to attack and you need to understand how they fit together. That’s the genius of having those guys and ladies that have done it before and seeing how their mind-set is. They’ve built businesses and sold them, and helped other people turn their businesses around. Until we got to this point within the last couple of months, that it was difficult to find where those pieces fit. We found out where they fit, and, hopefully, it’ll grow from that point forward.
It’s like having a whole coaching staff of experts and not just coaches—I’m an assistant coach for this, that and the other—but a bunch of coaches that are all head coaches that have done it before, working together to help your company get better.
Will, what are some of the critical things you have learned in working with our management consultants to help you become a better business owner?
The biggest thing for me is, sometimes you’ve got to step out of the business and stand above the crowd before you can see what’s going on. You can’t always stand in the weeds and see what’s coming at you. That’s the hard part because, you always assume—I’m in it and I know how it works. I can coach it better, I can teach it better. But, sometimes, you’ve got to take that view of stepping back from it and just seeing what it looks like.
That’s the biggest piece for me. It’s hard because, you’ve been in the grind. You’ve been working hard, every day. This should work and that should work and this should be a piece of it, but you’ve never stepped out of it and looked at it from the total economic piece of how it fits.
That’s the hard part because, you’ve always been that person that’s gone and done the work. It’s hard to step back from it and go, “This is how it needs to be done,” or “This is how it’s going to have to be done.” And then, let everything else grow from there and be able to take a view and watch it.
Both NFL players and business owners have strong egos. And, sometimes for business owners, their egos can get in the way of seeking expert advice. Looking back on your NFL career and now as a business owner, what advice can you give other business owners about being open to expert coaching to become better?
I’ve always known this simple fact—you’re either teaching or learning. If you’ve learned something, you can teach it. If you can teach it, that means you know it. For me, there’s nothing in the world that you can’t sit and listen to and learn from. Because, we’re not all experts in everything. Even me being an offensive guard in the Hall of Fame and all of the other stuff, I’ll watch other guards. I’ll watch other things they do and I’m still taking notes. I’m still finding other things that I can take and get better from and coach better from.
There’s new techniques, there’s little things that people—even verbiage—being able to change how you say certain things to certain millennials, or whatever it is, helps you communicate better. Helps you be a part of it and understand it. You might be talking the same language, but if you can communicate it better then, it makes it easier.
Those are the little pieces that you have to learn from, and you have to be open to it because, if we were all experts in it and we were that good at it, we would all be just happy as all get out that we’re all doing the best we can do. But, you can always be better. That’s the cool thing about it. Once you learn that—that you can always be better, then you can always learn from somebody else. That’s the hard part because the assumption is—if he doesn’t know this, then I should know that. But, in all actuality, everything flows together. You’ve got to be able to learn from one side to see what you can add to yours to make your business better.
We had a coach that had this saying— “If you’re not stealing from other people, you’re not trying.” I’m not saying stealing as stealing. I’m saying, if you’re not using what you learned from other people then you’re wasting your time because you’re wasting reps. You could do it over and over again, and do it wrong, or you can watch the guy in front of you and just watch him once. And then go, “I’ve got that down.” Then you can use that and it makes life easier. You’re not wasting your time.
Is there any other advice you would like to give to our readers about performing at a high level?
The one thing about it—this works well—in-between sessions, I had a person who came in and talked to us about mental acuity. I guess, that would be the word—or, working on your mental makeup, your patterns, your—what blocks you from becoming the best you can be and opening up to what everyone else—what the experts are trying to help you get to.
That’s one thing—feeling comfortable in your own shoes. That’s a hard thing for everyone because if you’re not comfortable in your own shoes, you’re afraid that when somebody else walks in the door, they’re telling you, you don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know where you’re walking. You don’t know what’s going on. Where, in all actuality, they’re just giving you information you can use to make your company better.
Make sure you’re that person that understands that it’s not going to be perfect. But, there’s always some little nugget that somebody else can help you to make your business better. You start with perfection, you end with excellence. If you can get to that point, then everything should work out fine.
Thanks, Will. It’s been an honor to talk with you about success.
