 Now I'd hear us welcomed to Herlfield Air Force Special Operations Command. I told you earlier, you're in the land of the quiet professional. So our men and women are asked to do missions on a moment's notice. And we don't talk a lot about what we do. It's a shared experience. We'll look at each other across the room, and it's a nod, a handshake. Sometimes those missions are in some pretty terrible places. But we pride ourselves in getting after the mission. So it's awesome to have you here. My first question for you is, what are your thoughts on the military? What advice or what can you offer our team that we can capture? Well, I mean, I think me being here is already just an experience that I will never forget. I mean, just like I said, meeting people like you, Travis and people I know just hearing and learning more about what you guys are doing. I think that's the honor right there alone. Me hearing about the Air Force or really anything in a military or any type of, I don't know how to say that, what do you guys call it? Missions? Missions or anything. We always hear that. They're very strict. They're very on schedule. They're very focused on what they've got to do. And we always hear that we're the number one at everything. We have the number one power in the world. We have the number one military. We have the number one Air Force. We have the number one everything where a machine really just well oiled machine. So just hearing that as a regular civilian, I guess, as you will call it, for me to be from this country is something that I will learn more about. I remember when I went to an Army All-American game, that's when I really seen the troops and it was a bunch of them. And then I don't know who it was, but somebody, one person got all their attention at once. 3,000 people got their attention at once. I'm just like, damn, how does one person get all these people's attention? I mean, it's just very a team that's well oiled, that's well focused on their goal and their mission. And I just want to learn more about it. So me being here, it's like, man, I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I'm going to ask a lot of questions. Because I come from a background that team is important. One man's mistake will cost a group of people stuff. So me being around them, I'm like, man, what makes this so well oiled? Maybe I could come back to my team and tell them, this is what we need to do, because in the Air Force, they do this, and look how things play out for them. So I'm interested. Yeah. It's great to have you here. So we, you know, yes, we're in the Air Force, we're also in our special operations command. So we work with our Army, our Green Berets, our Army Rangers, we work with our Navy, our Navy SEALs. So we work with those elite teams. So when we show up at a time and place of our choosing, we can get the mission. And often it's to return American citizens from another country. One recent example is the call came in, and we launched aircraft with our people. So we had to have the maintainers to generate the aircraft, we had to put the aircrew on the aircraft and the equipment and go over to Sudan to bring Americans out of harm's way. Another thing we would say makes us prepared for those kinds of missions is reps and sets, much like you. So we practice, not till we get it right, you practice until you can't get it wrong. And that's something that probably rings true to you. We talk about being mentally, spiritually, and physically fit to fight. So on the mental piece, we can be our own worst enemies. 100%. How do you combat that? What do you do, what advice can you offer our team on staying mentally focused when you've got distractions, whether it's family distractions, friends distractions, maybe it's workplace. Maybe it's locker room distractions or things that are going on inside your organization. How do you get focused? Well, I think it goes to one word and I think this one word is actually underrated, but it's the will. What are you willing to do? For football, I play running back. I'm kind of bigger for running back, I am, but I'm always going to go against somebody who's bigger than me, stronger than me, faster than me. Anyway, a D-Lime and he's 6'5", to 320 pounds and he has to hit me, he's going to tackle me. In a small box where I can't really run away from him because I have to run through this hole no matter what for my team. So I mean, just the will, what are you willing to do for your teammates? What are you willing to do for your country? I'm willing to go to the extreme amounts just to do anything I can for my teammates because this is the ultimate team sport. I play the running back position, it's probably the most violent position. You don't, you last, that's the least. You don't have really the long career span that you want in other positions, but somebody has to do it. And I want to be that person really who can tell the team, be in front of the team, be like, I'm willing to do this for you guys. All you got, you guys want to do the same for me? You know what I mean? Do you doubt your capability every now and then? 100%. You know what I mean? But then it goes back to my training. Me training in the off-season kind of fades away that doubt. I train a lot. I train extremes. Like you were saying, repetition. I train a lot. I train probably more normal, more than normal, I guess, probably do too much. But I want to be in a position where I feel comfortable, or you guys, and you guys keep doing it over and over. You guys don't feel, I want to be in a position where I feel so comfortable in a situation that other people don't feel comfortable in. You know, the game is on the line for me. I want to be that person say, look, give me the ball on third and whatever. And I'm going to get this first down like 100%. It goes back to my training. Me constantly doing extra reps, training cardio. Me even tapping into other sports like boxing and other things like that for extremes amount of cardio. You know, when I'm getting a ball probably like 30 times a game, it's a fourth quarter and you need to get 10 more carries and you're beat up, sore. You know what I mean? You got all type of bruises on your body, bleeding everywhere. You got to be willing to get 10 extra more carries and to end the game and finish it. And then you got to do that again next week, next week, 17 games. And you doubt yourself for sure. But you got to remember where you started, where you came from. I came for a situation where I didn't really have nothing in my corner really. I didn't have nobody in my corner. So who was going to be their biggest believer? Who's going to be that person? And it's just a man in the mirror really. It's you. Nobody's going to believe in your goals and your aspirations than you. I always tell myself that it takes the artist to paint the picture. You're the artist. I'm not going to know or see your vision until you paint it out for them. And then when you see it, they see it. It's like, wow. That's a great analogy. I think often we look for that. If we don't see it in the mirror, we look for somebody else to give us that. But at the end of the day, you got to look at yourself and you got to find it from within. That's what you're telling me. Yeah. Exactly. 100%. So there's no doubt that most players at your level are physical specimens. You get the training. You're going to be like, if you're not, it's going to show. It's going to be revealed. Do you find that your organization pours effort into the spiritual piece? Because we're trying to find a balance for, I don't know that there is such a thing as balance. However, we are trying to find resources and ways to rehab our folks because we know what we need to do physically. Yeah. I think that's a pretty well oiled machine in your business and in our business. But the mental piece, because what affects you one way might affect me a different, you know, some way different. Exactly. It may never affect you where it affects me really hard. So there's no cookie cutter recipe for bringing folks focused. What have you experienced? Can you share anything about that? About just me being focused? Yeah. Like the resilience of it. Well, not the physical aspect, but more. More the mindset. Do you find are beneficial to you and your teammates to be mentally resilient? Man, so. Or does it always go back to the physical piece? I'm just not sure. No, no, like there's more than just physical pieces. You know, I came from a school, Alabama, for instance, I came from Alabama. We always teach discipline, pride, effort, commitment, you know, I mean, we always teach that. And I think that in NFL and just being a professional football player, there's more to it than just physical traits. And I mean, if you don't have the right mindset, you will never be able to provide for the team or you'll never be able to, I guess, really just provide for just the city, the team, anything, even NFL in general. Always having a great mindset. That's where it always starts from. You can have all the talent in the world, but if you have a terrible mindset, it's the worst thing to have. So I always train myself in a way where, you know, like what you were saying, you will always be your biggest critic. You'll always be. Right. I always train myself to put myself in a position where or anything bad happens to me or anything, you know, any type of road bumps I have, any place, times I gotta be resilient. How do I train myself to get over that? You know, the media and social media, they always play a factor. Do you look at it? I mean, you try not to, but, you know, in this time and age, it's like everything's on social media. You know, even when I don't try to be on it, it's like, okay, I might have a marketing thing where I have to post something and I might come across something. There's no way you can now, you know, I mean, yeah. So how do I, you know, try to find ways to use that as fire? That's why I always tell myself, how do I, how do I prove the doubters wrong? You know, how do I, how do I put myself in a position where, you know, when somebody else is in the same position as me, I could tell them, like, look at it. All the people, you know, they're always going to have their own opinion, but the only opinion that matters is how you view yourself. If you feel like you need to work on something and go into a space, train more, go into a position where you can train a lot more to, I guess, to work on those things. You know, I'm always in a situation where I have to prove doubters wrong. Always is. No matter how I've been. So when I was young, all the way up to the NFL, I was always in a position where, you know, you have to prove the doubters wrong about, you know, what they say. That's fuel. It's always fuel. It's always fuel. It's always fuel for me. I've been, I guess I'm so comfortable now, and I'm so used to it where I actually like it now. You know what I mean? I'm so used to people saying I can't amount to nothing, but I thrive off of it. This is something that I really like now. It always starts with your mindset, though. This is what you're saying. Long story short. It's just, the mindset is so important. We, uh, we don't have nobody to really hold my hand in a way, but like I said, that was a blessing in disguise. Because now, rookies come in or even, um, guys who've been on other teams and come to this team and they tell me, like, what are some ways where I could elevate my game or, or stuff like that. And I've been in every situation they could think of as a young guy that could help them out. So it's a blessing in disguise. Yeah. It's a win. You'll grow the next. Yeah. I'm certain of it. Yeah. Um, we're getting ready to have a bunch of young, high school young men out on her overfield next weekend to place them seven on seven football, uh, that are, uh, look to you as a role model, right? They want to be at your level one day. Some of them absolutely may make it on that, um, onto that stage. Some of them may not, uh, whether it's for injuries, uh, and, or for other reasons, um, go back in time to 16 or 17 year old Nanji. What would you tell those kids that are facing adversity, uh, that are out of a fork in the road, uh, to either keep, to, to continue? Yeah. What advice would you give them? So me at 16 or 17, right? And just really anyway, um, you're kind of still figure out what you want to be in life, you know, um, and you look at other people and, you know, you see how they're doing the things. I was in the environment where the people I looked at, they were not doing good at all. Um, and I love looking at, listen to motivational speakers, love listening to motivational speakers and You sure go to. Les Brown. Okay. So he told, so he told me, but I'll read and I'll always look at his videos every time cause I work on my mentality and he think, one thing that stood out for me the most when he said, um, he said, do not go where the path may lead, but go where there's no path and leave a trail. So I'm like, man, like that stood out for me ever since I was young because I would see other people following the direction that's not really where I want to go and I'm trying to, you know, kind of a young age, you're kind of saying like, is it okay for me to walk my own path? You know what I mean? So, um, that's hard. That's hard. It's extremely hard. Extremely hard. Especially at that. Yeah. Extremely. Especially at a young age. You know what I mean? I don't really have like a role model or something. So, um, for me to walk my own path, you know, follow, make my own trail, it was extremely hard because you got to face adversity. You got to face everybody telling you what you can't do and what you can't amount to. Um, man, and, you know, for me to go through that journey and for me to be where I'm at today, man, I will tell people like, you know, do not go over the path and leave, but go over the path and leave it. Leave your own trail. Leave, leave your own, make your own story. Don't follow that crowd that you know is not going to amount to anything. You know what I mean? Um, and when you do achieve what you do, go back to that same place. That's what I do. And try to motivate other people and saying, like, you know, walk your own path. It's okay to stand out. You know what I mean? Those are who will make the diamonds, you know. So, that's what I'll say. That's great advice because the challenge in high school at that age when you're trying to figure out what you want to do from life and the social pressures never changes. It doesn't matter what decade we're in. That's a real thing. So, I think that'll resonate with the young kids. Yeah. Oh, I see. You knew that. Pretty good. Yeah. E.T. Spire. E.T. Spire. I think it doesn't matter what you look like, how old you are, you're always looking for some kind of inspiration. Yeah. And it may be inspiration for myself because I doubt my ability to lead all these young men and women. Maybe it's an angle to connect with one of our young airmen that has come in because I'd like to think I'm relevant with 16, 17, 18, but I'm not. Yeah. Let's be real. So, I'm always looking to improve myself. It doesn't stop. Everybody's got a story. We can look in a room full of five people or 5,000 people and everyone has a journey. You have a story. I have a story. And, you know, I'll tell you that to see you use the platform, the gifts that God has given you for good to pay it back. I'm a believer that you grow the next. You use your success, but more importantly, your failures to grow the next. And to go back and remind folks like, hey, I was there. I struggled there. And to keep pushing forward. I have the honor of being the first special operations wing commander. There's a lot of people relying on me to guide the ship and move it the right direction as well as our command chief. When we look at using platform for good, one of our goals here at Holberfield is to bring the community onto the installation so they can see the men and women in uniform doing great work. You're doing the same thing and paying it forward by going back to where you came from, but looking at the youth to inspire them for the next. What's it? Is there a piece of advice or is there something you'd like to offer to the folks that might be in a position that they can do good? Yeah. Maybe aren't. Yeah. So this platform I have, like what you say, you work really hard to get there. Now that I'm in a position where I could impact other communities, I use that to my full advantage. So I was homeless for a good amount of my life. So now that I'm here at this stage, I partnered with the governor of California Gavin Newsom, one of my good friends. And homelessness is so huge out there. So now I'm standing up on a podium with him talking about how ways or anything we can do to change the situation of homelessness out there. That was something I always wanted to work on and that's something I always wanted to do and I'm still doing to this day with my nonprofit and stuff. So for me it's to be in this position where I can shed light on things that I feel like needs to get shed light on more on is big. So obviously homelessness, I was talking about just about the use of our flag football in there. That's huge, especially for women too, getting to flag football and really just expanding our sport, making it be more worldwide. Because right now it's kind of an American sport, but the more we can expand it, I want to be the kind of that person to do that. There's a lot of other positions where I talk to also in just the running back football world, but that's not important. No, I think every person you touch, right? So it's great to have you here because next time you go out on your platform and say, hey, those military folks are not so bad. We do offer an opportunity and a team just like the team you're on, that maybe that path leads them our way. Exactly, yeah. So like for being here, you know, looking at outside world, we think it's a whole different world here. Like I said, I think you guys have any personality that you guys would be in, you know what I mean? Just hearing the stuff. It's all for the camera. Yeah, I mean, you're playing the games with Call of Duty and nothing even laughs. I mean, Shepherd and Ghost in the game, they're all, I mean, you guys play Call of Duty, I'm pretty sure. But you know, it's all very strict, you know what I mean? But just to be here, crack jokes, you know what I mean? Laugh and have a good time. It's kind of, you get a different perception from the outside world. So just to see that when you get here, it's not like that at all. You spend a lot of time with each other. You guys know each other. You guys know exactly what's what. When is the time to turn it on? When is the time to, you know what I mean, relax and enjoy you guys' self? I was asking Travis a lot of questions, too. I'm thinking y'all don't even go out or nothing or eat out or you can't even leave the base. Yeah, I'm thinking y'all eating rations and stuff. Yeah, I mean, y'all, it's just a different world and a different perspective when you are really here. Looking on the outside end is different from the outside. We, I would offer that if you look at the word get and the word have, so there's a lot of things that as being in the military we have to do. But if you take the have out and you go I get to, I get to put on this uniform every single day and go defend the freedoms that we hold so dear. Yeah. I get to go get after the enemy. I get to lead men and women in uniform and I'm just representative of an incredible team that also wears a uniform. You get to put on your uniform and represent who you are and your background and your family and your country essentially and the Steelers right as you get onto that field. So there are a lot of habs and when I find myself kicking rocks and feeling like I have to I'm like I get to. I get to be a part of that. It's a different perspective. The way you say like that actually makes a lot more sense. I get to wear my uniform. Yeah, exactly. They have to, but not everybody gets to. Yeah.