 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Guys, and we're live back here in Think Tech Studios, Hawaii, with the Prince of Investing show. Live here, and let's shoot a broadcast live on how we were live. If you guys know, I'm here in River, Colorado, but thank you guys for tuning in, guys. Don't forget to hit that like, subscribe, comment, and share button, and all the other great stuff. As you guys can already see, we have a very, very special guest with us here today in 12-year NFL veteran, live backer, Jared Johnson. He called us all the way from Florida. We're going to sit down with him. We're going to talk about his NFL career, life before the NFL, life during the NFL, you know, financial literacy, all the other great stuff, time in the league, and life after the league. Thank you to all of that. But you guys stay tuned. You guys stay, keep it locked right here. And as always, I don't have a lot of time, and I definitely, you guys don't have a lot of time, but we're going to jump straight into it. So, what I've heard to do, I know you guys are tuning in to hear my MindFall Day. I've got to bring in our special guest, Mr. Jared Johnson. How you doing today, sir? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing outstanding. First of all, I want to say thank you for stopping by and spending a little time with a peon like myself. I greatly appreciate it. Oh, no. Ain't nobody saying, man, I don't know about that peon thing. I mean, But this is, but this is the thing, right, you know, I know it's a big week, you know, in college football, and I was, you know, me and myself, I'm originally from Georgia, and, you know, I was looking through some of your history, and I found one little discrepancy down there, you know, that you, um, just a university Alabama alumni. That's right. You guys are going to the college football league. I'm a college football championship against Georgia here. And with that being said, me being originally from Georgia, you already know I'm rooting for the Bulldogs. I just want to say, man, you guys already got no championships. Let us get one. Okay. That's the thing about being an Alabama fan is just watching how mad everybody else gets. But we have something in common, something in common is half the country, more than half the country. H-D-S-E-C, and it just makes me happy that it's an all S-E-C championship game. So, uh, we get to enjoy that in the build up to the game, and it will be, uh, it will be enemies today, uh, but until then, I'm going to enjoy making everybody else mad. I knew they were going to get Alabama, and that's some type of way. But with that being said, for people out there who don't know who Jerry Johnson is, who is Jerry Johnson? Who am I? Now I'm a retired, uh, NFL linebacker, um, and I'm a family man, I do some radio on the side, um, I run a fishing charter on the side, but my, uh, everyday job is I'm a stay-at-home dad, um, I'm around the house a lot when I'm not traveling on the water or something like that, but, um, you know, I, uh, I pride myself on, on being a good husband and a good father. Oh, awesome, awesome. Now, going back to your history, right, you paid for, played for University of Alabama, you've done some great things down there, and then you went off and got drafted by, uh, the Baltimore Ravens. How was that feeling of getting drafted into the NFL? It was good. I didn't, I didn't so much enjoy the draft process, uh, the combine and senior ball and stuff like that. I mean, it's a, it's a straight up meat market. So I, I think it was very stressful. Um, you get a lot of people pulling at you. A lot of people telling, telling, telling you things that you, they think you want to hear. It's not real healthy. Um, I didn't, I don't really enjoy the attention or limelight or anything like that. Um, so once I did get draft day, I thought I was just like everybody else. So I was going on the first day, ended up going on the second day. Um, but it could, I could have got drafted in a better place, you know, better spot. I was a fourth round draft pick, but ended up being a perfect spot for me. Um, and then to a team that I played for for nine years, um, had a great career in Baltimore. I was a perfect team that fit my personality and my style of play. And then I went on to, uh, San Diego and finished down my career with 30 years of San Diego. Okay, now looking back on that, you know, so you got to play with some of the, some pretty, um, big names from Hall of Famer's day. You got, uh, Ed Reid behind you, you know, learning from Ray Lewis, uh, you know, Joe Flacco there, uh, you know, what's up, what's up, what's there? How was it like to play with all these Hall of Famer's and being on the Raven, known for defense and being a linebacker? Right. No, it was awesome. I mean, you know, there was, um, uh, early in my career, I had David Cannon play with Dion Sanders for a couple of years. He and Charles Suggs were, uh, in the same draft class. He's still one of my closest friends. Um, but the guy there is, is Ray Lewis. You know, he's a standard maker. He's, he's, uh, the bar. He's set the bar for the rest of the players to live up to. Um, but, uh, I was definitely fortunate to have, um, a lot of really good players around me. It also, a lot of really good coaches, like for Chuck Gano and Rick Ryan and MPs and I can go down the list and the number of good coaches that, uh, that opportunity to play for. Okay. Now you say, you know, when you go through this, I thought that's kind of funny when you said that a little meat market process going through the end of, uh, when you're going through this and you know, you finally get drafted, how, you know, who at your NFL career, since you had a pretty long career, 12 years, if you don't mind saying it here, how much money do you think you probably accumulated throughout that time? Um, I don't, I don't know. Um, yeah, I, I, I signed a three year deal. My rookie deal was a three year deal. Um, and then I signed a one year tender. Um, and then I signed, uh, a five year deal. That was my first, that was my three contracts with Baltimore. And then I signed a four year deal with San Diego, in which I played three of it. Um, but I don't, I don't know the, the, uh, the exact number. Um, but it was, you know, I had a, uh, fortunate career. I played a lot longer than I, than I, that I even anticipated me playing. Um, you know, and it was, uh, you know, it was, um, it was definitely, I had the opportunity to live a dream. Um, but fine in my money wise, you know, uh, she doesn't have to add it up. Okay. Well, you know, since you know, when you make that type of money, you don't even know what you're made. You probably, you know, I got a couple million, pretty sure it was a couple of millions, right? But throughout, throughout that time, you know, so you, you guys know who to call when you need to borrow $5, you know, so throughout that time, did you make any investments? Yeah, I did. I've, I've, uh, I learned a lot in my financial career. What I call you take your, uh, your, your, uh, focus outside of football and family, you know, um, there definitely become, you definitely take on a lot of responsibility. Once you start making money in the NFL, um, things definitely change. Uh, you don't particularly change, but, um, a lot of people around you, the way people view you, uh, and I remember the first time, you know, I was, you know, I was a C average student, um, you know, I was your typical jock. I was, you know, I'm from the country, very small town, and I remember I was going through the draft process and I was visiting with my uncle and he started asking me questions about, um, uh, he was wanting to refinance his house and he was asking my opinion on how he should refinance his house and I was like, why are you asking me this? I mean, you know, the point is, is that just because he knew I was going to get drafted and start making money, he automatically thought that I was like this financial guru that I knew the things that he needed to be doing with, with his financial life and I hadn't even, first of all, I didn't know what he was talking about at the time and I hadn't signed my contract yet. So I was still basically living like a college kid. Now that was my first indicator of how, you know, people's view of huge changes wants to associate you with the NFL. Wow. Okay. So, so you go into, what are some other examples of how people treat you a little different? You know, once they find out, you know, you know, you got to get drafted or you're a prospect. I'm sorry, can you repeat the question? Like, what are some other examples, like you had the example of your uncle about refinancing his house? What are some other examples? Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, you could be out socially, yeah, you could be out socially being a bar or social event or whatever and, you know, I dress normal. I'm a bigger guy, but I don't, you know, I'm not going to, you know, you're not going to automatically know that I'm playing the NFL. And, you know, you get to talk to people and they might, you know, be bragging about themselves or just kind of treating you like, you know, you're, you know, you're not nobody, but they're just not really paying it. And all of a sudden, the minute they find out that, that you play in the NFL, their attitude changes, they're the way they look at you, the way they, the questions they get, like, automatically. It's one thing about the NFL is it automatically makes people's viewpoint and, like, they must, you know, they're either intimidated by you or they, like, want to start bragging about themselves or, like, measuring up or they're kissing your butt and they're telling you how great, you know, it's rare for somebody to meet you and just treat you like a normal human. They're always either going to go in a negative way or an overly positive way. And a lot of times I'm like, hold on, now, you were just talking to me normal, second ago, before you found out I play and also the final you play, they got treated in a different way. But you just, you got to learn to deal with that. One thing I always try to do is treat everybody the same, no matter if it's, you know, if it's a bomb on the street or a fear of a company, everybody's the same, you know, we're all created by God and are equals. The only way, the only thing that's different is the way you treat people, the way people treat you. Well, I would say, you know, to contribute to that, you know, when you guys get to the NFL, you know, they make you guys seem larger than life, you on television, you know, what do you eat? What do you drive? What do you do every day and it's zooming in on your face that you go on prime television, you know, it's a multi-million dollar, billion dollar marketing plan placed behind you guys that, you know, when you see someone in the NFL, you're like, oh, wow, man, you're in the NFL or you wasn't in the NFL or you're going to the NFL. So people kind of, that's kind of funny that you say some people go over the top with bragging about themselves or measure up or they become intimidated. So but, but now the question that, you know, financially seems like you did pretty well with planning to leave for 12 years and now you just, you know, hanging out fishing and just being dead and husband. No, I was always, you know, I think the best thing that I did financially is that I kept it simple. I understood I made a budget every year based off of my lifestyle and my income and the things I wanted to get out of whatever I was making that year. I started my rookie contract. You know, as rookie, I'm making there's much money and I remember my first game check I was making like, like 7,000 a week. And that's only that's for the games you play. So 16 games plus a buy. We see 17 checks and I would take 5,000 of that and I put it in the savings and I'd take two and I would go to my bills and, you know, my basically went into my checking account. Now the years go on and you start making more money. That obviously changes, you know, that number changes. But the philosophy that the majority of it is going to go to savings and a portion of it goes into your checking and kind of your lifestyle. It goes up as your salary goes as you get to be a veteran and you start making more money. But I never, I never, I never deviated from that from that plan. You know, I never change from, you know, I didn't look at my salary is what they had slotted in my contract. I looked at it is no. What what am I paying myself to live off of and arrest of it is all going to whether I have a real estate plan or just my say most of it just go straight and save it or my portfolio. And I did that for my entire of your career. OK, now when you say you made investments, what type of investments did you make? If you don't mind me asking? Well, yeah, I made some dumb ones early. You know, I had a financial advisor that was trying to give me into some outside stuff outside of just my portfolio. And you know, one of them was a product that they use for it was a product of the instruction to spray this formula or the solution on the frame of houses and I was supposed to termize kidney and all this junk. You know, luckily, I didn't invest that much money in it. I ended up getting that getting the money out of it. But I did that and then but as my career went on, I mainly just real estate. You know, I did a couple of real estate deals. Just bought some dirt in some areas in Ballin County and have a buddy that owns a company in Texas. I'm a silent partner with him. But outside that, I mean, the vast majority of my stuff is just, you know, I would call it not, not sexy, not some fun to talk about it. I'm a bottom ladder. No, that's that's actually pretty good to hear, you know, as far as, you know, getting involved with real estate because, you know, so often we have stories of NFL, you know, veterans that are not doing too well with. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, you know, everybody wants to talk about the bad stories. Everybody wants to talk about the stories of the guys that, you know, that boil their money and they buy all these crazy cars or houses and travelers. Yeah, I would say that obviously those are the fun ones to talk about. That's what people like to, you know, they kind of want to use it as a knock, you know, to all those dumb athletes or whatever. But I mean, I'd be willing to say that the majority of the teammates I've had over the years have been there's been just as many of them who have been either have every dime they've made since they played or have made more. There's just as many as those guys is our guys that are that are they're struggling and blew their money. But nobody wants to talk about the guys that have gone on and and either just live off their savings and live a modest lifestyle or they got into outside deals started companies. They went on and got a job or went into coaching or whatever in there and do and do really well with it financially. But that's a little different. You know, I'm different. I like to highlight you guys to say, hey, you know what? You've done some good stuff, you know, not everybody because what happened is the outside world is we're not in the league. We're nowhere near close to being in the league. All we know is what the media push out there in the media usually jumps onto the stories of, oh, look, this guy blew everything he has. Nothing in blah, blah. And you hear that story over and over and you think, you know, what are the good ones? It's that you don't see the good ones. You just assume that, wow, all those guys in the field just blow all their money. Right. So yeah, that's exactly right. And most of the guys that are good with their money, they're not going to tell you they're good with their money. I'm going to tell you how much money they have. They don't dress or act in a way. You know, I got teammates that I played with that that, you know, they made you know, 30, 40 million dollars in contracts. And saved every penny. They've started gyms and other outside companies. If you met them, I mean, they work out pants on or driving a pickup truck and just normal as they can be. But yeah, those guys are not real fun to talk about. But there's a bunch of them out there. Jay, are you just describing yourself without telling us? I mean, yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm not going to act like, you know, I'm living the truth. You know, I mean, I I live a lifestyle that that I can afford. I keep everything within my means. But I'm also enjoy life. You know, I I set aside enough money to where if my wife wants to go out to a nice dinner, I'm not going to complain about the price of the steak or, you know, she wants to go somewhere for a weekend and we're going to get to I'm not going to complain about it. You know, we're just going to talk that up. Is is a life experience and and and we're going to enjoy life. But but yeah, there's there's there's there's nothing wrong with enjoying life and and you know, and enjoying you know, your hard work, but it's got to all be within your means. OK, well, that's good. You know, I'm very glad to hear that. You know, one thing I did want to ask you, too, is, you know, what about your personal life? Do you have, you know, your marriage, you have kids and anything like that? Yeah, yeah, I married, got two little girls, OK, been married to my wife for. You know, I've been there for 13 years again. I don't think about it there for a second. But now the question I have now is is there anything that you look back over your NFL career and say, man, I wish I would have done this different or I wish somebody would have told me this for somebody who's listening to this that maybe you're ready to go to the league or that maybe, you know, get ready to play in the national championship, college football, national championship, that's going to that meat market. Like you said, what advice would you give? Financially, yeah, financially, financially, and personal to. I don't know. I really wouldn't change a whole lot about my career. I think. I think personally, as an athlete, I would have. I wish I would know about nutrition and things, you know, know how to take care of my body earlier in my career. You know, you know, I didn't learn that stuff till four or five years in the league. I mean, you know, we didn't, you know, to me, you know, eating good carbs and protein was beer and chicken wings. And then once I got once I got in the NFL and you got a personal trainer for that eat properly and nutrition and all this stuff, you know, it made me a better player. I wish I'd learn that earlier in my career. Financially, I was fortunate to wear the the dumb deals that that the few dumb deals I got into, I was able to get my money out and the dumb deals that I was that I was presented with because you get presented with a ton of stuff. I mean, I can't tell you the amount of ideas and get rich themes. And, you know, guys coming up to any time a guy walks up to you, says, I'm going to make you rich. I'll walk away. Good advice. Yeah, but the vast majority of them I never followed through with, you know, and I'm thankful for that, you know, but so financially, I wouldn't I wouldn't change a whole lot. You know, I would I would I would, you know, I wish I was a little more business savvy, you know, because I have a financial advisor and stuff, but like I said, I keep things keep things simple. I don't I don't have any debt. I whittle down any debt that I did have, you know, my first six years of my career and been living debt free ever since. And because of that, I can live debt free forever. So, you know, I would I wouldn't change a whole lot about my my financial career. Well, that's very good advice that you gave out, keeping it simple, invest it into things that you possibly know about. And, you know, you want to do great things in real estate with invest it into tangible things that you know about, you know, or whatever, because, you know, always you ever thought about, like, getting a franchise, anything like that? Getting a franchise? Yeah, like a franchise. I don't know, Dare Queen, the subway, McDonald's or something like that. I mean, there's some there's some there's some good deals you can get into. You know, I don't I don't really I don't really look into them personally, but, you know, there are some some good franchises out there that are that are sound investments for investor, and you can get a pretty safe return on your dollar. You know, like a lot of McDonald's if they're run correctly, you know, are are can be super good investments. But, you know, I would say that the main saying that you need to do as far as investing is, is have a good CPA, you know, have a good financial advisor, somebody that you can trust, and they don't have to be a sports specific investor. You know, the minute you start going through the draft process, all these guys are going to come out of the wood work, and they're going to start recruiting these players to come and invest their money with them. And a lot of them are saying, you know, I'm going to pay your bills for you. I'm going to handle your taxes for you. I'm going to do all this stuff. And it's going to be at a super inflated rate. Don't ever let anybody pay your bills. Always pay your own bills. So you know what's going out every day. And then don't ever sign a power of attorney that's going to let somebody say, look, sign this power of attorney, and I'm going to take your money, I'm going to handle it for you. Always know where every penny is gone. It doesn't have to be anything super glamorous. You know, like me, I had a sport specific advisor. I fired him before I got a dime because I saw the right if they're going to charge like 30 grand just to do my taxes. You know, that was that when I count what I had to pay Uncle Sam, that was for him to hit my taxes. I was going to he was going to pay me. I had to pay him like 30 grand. I found out about plus he was going to charge like two and three percent to invest my I realized this is a racket. You know, and then I just went, I knew I had a friend in college, his dad had some money. And I was like, who's your dad? He used to use this guy with Morgan Keegan. I went and met him. And he's just just a good old guy. Just a real smart investor, very conservative, didn't say anything super sexy, never told me he was going to make me rich. And he ended up being my financial advisor for a long time until he retired. And when I left him, I went and got another guy that was very similar, you know, but you've got to be careful of anybody that's out hunting you without pursuing you because they're not doing it for nothing. They're they're being that aggressive and taking you to dinner and going to do all this stuff because they're going to make money on the back end. OK, so it was a sports agent. So like he was going on this sports advisor, so like he was going to hook you right on up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, there's an agent totally different. An agent he's going to make his three percent. He handles your contract. You know, I'm talking about I'm talking about the financial advisor. Yeah. Now, you know, go ahead, Jared. No, no, no. Now, the question is now after football, life after football, what is life after football for Jared Johnson? Well, I mean, you know, financially, you know, we're talking about, you know, financially, just my everyday life. Yeah, just everyday life. Like, would you get into anything in detail? You just like just keep it simple, just do a little fishing and, you know, right. All right, retirement is tough for everybody, especially the longer you play in the NFL, the harder it's going to be when you get out because, you know, when you're in, it's not reality. I mean, you your whole life, the best example or the best analogy I've heard grabbing life in the NFL or retirement in general, is that life in the NFL is like a road. Travel down the road, you got signs, people telling you which way to go. You have everything is built around your whole life, the structure, even the off season, you know, your daily routine of working out, you know, your new nutrition plan, you know, going to offseason program, then you're going to mini camp and you got your plan, your schedule for the summer, you know, working up the training camp and training camp and go through the season and everything is laid out in front of you and you just have to travel down this road and not run it off into the bit. Retirement is like traveling in an open field, there's nothing but time, opportunity and resources to go any direction you want. But there's nothing in your past that has trained you to know which way to go. I mean, you could it's it's it's really paralyzing your first couple months out. When you realize that I could go work out, but I don't have to go work out, you know, I could, I could, I could start a business, you know, but I know how to run this business. You know, you could you could start a restaurant, you could go get a job, you could get into coaching, you could get into personnel. You can I mean, the resources or the opportunities are endless and you can afford essentially to do anything. I mean, I had a guy come to me and talk about buying a car dealership. Oh, that sounds good. The hell do I know about running a car dealership? You know, let's go this. Let's go. And so it's paralyzing on knowing which way to go. So I stuck with what I know and what I'm passionate about at a radio show when I was in Baltimore, I got into doing radio again. And that's been trying to travel a little bit against staying in contact with the team, watch a little film. You know, it's great. I grew up fishing. Fishing is a passion of mine. So I started the charter company. I don't make a lot of money on it. But the fishing and having a boat is expensive and I get to run enough trips to where all that all my activities are tax deductible. I can write all off under the business. So that became an advantage of mine to basically fund my hobby. And then the other thing is my family. I'm passionate about hanging out with my girls and getting involved in their sports and different things. And basically what I'm saying, when you get out, if you don't have the same passion about something else in life other than football, as if you're not as passionate about that as you were about football, you're going to struggle when you get out of the NFL. It's going to be tough for you. So I kind of figured out what you want to do. Maybe you want to, you know, we got all this time and you can like I could go work out. I don't have to go work out and, you know, just kind of. But that's good. So tell us about your radio. So what got you in the radio? I had a show when I was in Baltimore. I had a show for three years on our flagship station for the Ravens WBWDAL 98 Rock. And I had a show there for a while. It was a lot of fun. They wanted to ask me to come back and continue the show. And I've been doing that ever since. And now I've recently moved into the booth with our with the play by play guy on WDAL and I'm the analyst at the booth. So I've been doing that the last four games of the season. So it's it's been good. It's I don't get paid a lot of money, but I get paid a little bit. It's fun to travel. And it's just another thing that, you know, I'm big on getting up early and having a plan for the day, you know, having something to get up and go do something to look forward to. And the radio has just added another thing in my day that that I get to get up and have something to get out and accomplish. Now, with that being said, what made you what happened to the Ravens this season? Well, it was a pretty lucky season. I mean, they started out, even played pretty good early, had a pretty bad three or four game stretch, got behind and they had a bunch of injuries and stuff. quarterback wasn't playing real good. And then they rally, they got healthy. Quarterback started playing better, got on a worse peak, got back in the hot, was actually blotted in the fifth seat. All that there was one the last game and and they slipped up and Cincinnati really the bangles. Yeah, I know. It's one of the things that you always got to be careful of your division rival. Yeah, because it's always like a playoff game to them. It doesn't matter. They are over 16. It's still that one game that got in them. That's right. Yeah, I got to ask this question. If it's the anything you would like to leave with anybody out there that's listening or is watching this live. What is it something that J. Johnson wanted to take away? Well, I mean, I think the the main thing and being in the financial show, if there's any young guys out there listening, you know, never never forget who you are. Never let your money or whatever you make or whatever you become the NFL, don't let them change you. Always get you who you are through your family. I was living in Queens and you know, it doesn't matter you know, we're 100 bucks or a hundred million dollars. You know, we're all here. Everybody else is saying and just enjoy life. OK, well, you know, I'm going to tell you what I learned from you was to keep it simple, right, stick into what you know, maintain humble and the biggest thing that you said in the beginning, he started a budget and he kept it simple, started a budget, keeping it simple, that's into what he knew, you know, you didn't get into nothing that's super quick. Hey, I'm going to get you rich. I'm about to get rich in the next six months. If you're going to jump on the train with me, just what we knew it felt comfortable with real estate. And he found an advisor that helped him out as well. So that's glad to hear. Now, I say one of the best it's one of the best words of advice a coach told me my rookie year is when we were going home for the off season. He said, I don't care what anybody presents to you. No real estate deal. No marketing plan. Nothing that anybody can present you will make you more money than you can make out there on that green grass on that football field. If you want to make some money, if you want to, you know, do well in life, it's true. Go home, work out, stay in shape, take care of your body and focus on football because that is the greatest investment you'll ever make if you have the opportunity to play in the NFL because everybody wants to go out and make money elsewhere. Don't work out. You know, take care of your body. You know, keep it simple. Do what you do best. Don't even go out there trying to start a chain of restaurants or whatever else. You know, you stick with what you know. That's true because not too many places can beat the NFL play chat. So. But definitely, Josh, thank you for stopping by. I really appreciate it. Really, if anybody out there wants to talk to you and get in contact with you, what's the way you tell them to reach out to you? If they want to reach out to you, if you want to be reached out to. Yeah, I don't really want to be reached out. I had to throw that in my life. Maybe he might want to be there. Yeah. Yeah. But OK. Yeah, that's pretty much. I mean, I don't really do I do Instagram. I get to check on Instagram, but other than that, I want Twitter. So. Well, Josh, thank you for stopping by. Thank you for dropping the gems. As always, guys, this is the principle of investing. My name is Prince Dyke. Thank you, guys, for tuning in until the next video book podcast, whatever you seem to do crazy around the globe. Peace. Be safe. I'm out and thank you.