September 16, 2019 • 48 mins
In this episode, Jeff sits down with one of the most respected NFL players to ever play the game, 2019 Hall of Fame inductee and longtime friend, Tony Gonzalez. Tony is a former NFL tight end who played 17 season, 270 games and 14 pro bowls and with that retired as the all-time leader in catches, yards and touchdowns by a tight end. But Tony’s career hasn’t always been full of big wins and easy routes. Listen as he deep dives into how each stage in his life has taught him the value behind over coming fear, mastering the art of focus and what it means to “play with your heart”.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how the world's most fascinating people have
hustled their way to the top. I'm your host, Jeff Rosenthal,
co founder of Summit and owner of Powder Mountain Ski
Resort in Utah, and in today's episode, I get to
sit down with one of the most respected NFL players
to ever play the game, nineteen first Ballot Hall of
Fame inductee and someone unfortunate enough to call my friend,
(00:29):
Tony Gonzalez. For those listening, Tony is a former NFL
tight end who played seventeen seasons, fourteen of which ended
in Pro Bowls, and he retired as one of the
greats to ever play the position, in the second all
time leading receiver in terms of yardage ever. He's also
the host of the podcast Wide Open with Tony Gonzalez
(00:49):
and also does a lot of the hosting for NFL
broadcasts on television, etcetera. Please welcome to the podcast, Tony
gun Salas. Thank you for coming. We really appreciate it.
I know we're teen minutes from your home, which is wonderful. Perfect. Yeah,
and you grew up out here Torrance Huntington's Torrance is
where I was born, but I grew I grew up
all over. You know. We didn't had that much money
(01:09):
when I was a kid, so uh it was Long Beach, uh, Cerritos, Norwalk, Westminster,
Fountain Valley, and Huntington and then we finally pretty much
settled on Huntson Beach, moved around six seven times by
the time I was in sixth grade. And so that
was where we went to Huntington's and and lived in
a a little uh two bedroom condo, which is me
(01:31):
and my mother. My parents were divorced at this point,
got divorced when I was really young, and we're on
welfare and and living in these this place called Continentals,
which is kind of like project it is, it's Project
Housing Button Huntington Beach. So I'm not in the hood
by any means, but it's definitely the poor side of
Huntington Beach. Uh. And then we met my stepdad, Michael Saltzman,
(01:52):
who came and my mom fell in love with this man,
this beautiful Jewish man, and uh he had a little
coin uh not too rich, so middle we moved on
to the middle class neighborhood and then pretty much State
and Huntington Beach and and the rest is history. I
guess incredible. Well, I mean, that's an amazing story and
I want to go back to that and hear how
that you know whether or not that played part of
(02:12):
your motivation. But you know, I think that for football fans,
you're you're pretty universally known people. I mean, you're you're,
you know, the number two in terms of receiving yardage
in the history of the game. You were in fourteen
Pro Bowls and seventeen seasons. You missed two games, Is
that right? Like you? So you're like you, I mean,
you're your first first ballot Hall of Famer. So if
(02:34):
football fans know that you have been dominating the sport
that you're in since the moment that you started playing it,
uh And and you know, for this, I'm hoping that
there's this is gonna introduce, you know, people that might
not know aspects of your background or that story and
really what separated you. And that's why you know, starting
with you know, growing up here, I know, you went
to cal Berkeley UM and you're two sport athlete, right,
(02:55):
You're playing basketball and football, and as I understand, also
had a huge impact on on your career. Yeah, like
the player you became or the way you play the game?
Is that was that where it really? Do you think
that was where it started to differentiate it? Were you
already dominating in high school? It didn't, It didn't always
start out that way. Um. You know, And I played
pop worn of football when I was a kid. I
was worst kid on the team. Were you really the
worst kid on the team? And hear that, but were
(03:17):
you really the worst? Three years younger than everybody? And
you know why? It was because I was scared. I
was a lot a lot of fear when I put
on the shoulder pads and the helmet because you're running
into somebody full speed, you know. So it's it was
tough for me. And I actually quit because I wasn't playing. Literally,
I would go into the game. You pay a hundred
thirty five dollars and you're supposed to be guaranteed six plays.
(03:39):
Back in the eighties. Now it's of the place, So
I didn't know they were guaranteed you. If you pay
the money, you get to play. Um, And I don't know.
That's a whole different subject. Should you be allowed to
where should you not whatever, but for me back then,
my coach still wouldn't even put me in for those
six plays, and so I ended up quitting and said,
I don't like it because I don't like contact. That's
the reason. What had nothing to do with athletic ability
(04:01):
or talent at that point, it was it was just
sheer fear of running into somebody full speed. Uh. And
then I tried out again the next year, played a
little bit. Uh. Maybe I got the ten percent, but
I didn't quit this year because my mom it was like,
you're you're not quitting. That's not you, that's not what
(04:22):
Gonzales is due. And so I went allowed to quit
that year. But something interesting happened to me. And I've
talked about this before. I don't know if you do
you know my bully story. Do you only hear the okay,
because I've told it before. Um, But basically, there's this
long story short. There was a bully that would come
down from the high school and I was in junior
high and it would come every single day. And I
(04:42):
don't even know why this guy wanted to beat me up,
just just tough guy. I still don't know to this day.
And he would come down every day. And this was
the stories back then, you know, the the Hey, this
guy he gotta fight with two guys the other day
and he took a skateboard and hit one him over
the head, then got a brick and smashed it in
his face. You know, you saw this urban legend, this guy.
So I kept getting more scared and more scared. Uh.
(05:03):
And I had a skateboard that I would strategically place
in a in a bush and I would leave as
soon as the bell ring. I would run to that
skateboard and go home. And I had no friends, like
nobody all my friends that were that I was kind
of cool going into my eighth grade year. After that,
I became like a social misfit, like uh, the P word,
you know that, that a whimp. And I wasn't going
(05:25):
to dances, I went't hanging out for school. I wasn't
talking to girls or anything like that. Total latchkey kids,
just watching TV all day. And then uh, he called
me on the phone one day and he said, hey,
why do you keep dodging me? Why don't you just
fight me quick being a pussy and fight me? And
I said, okay, well, I don't know why you want
(05:45):
to fight me. And he's like, well, you just talk
ship that's what he said, which is not true. H
And I go, okay, well give me some give me
some time to train, and uh I I we set
a date for the fight, and which was like two
or three weeks later, and like, hey, just leave me
alone until then. And so I'm training in the garage
and my whole family knew about this, and my mom especially,
(06:06):
she's a tough rock woman from the South side of Chicago,
and she's like, you need to just fight him, just
get it over with. And I have an older brother, uh,
and he's the same thing. Why don't you just get
it over with? Uh? And I'm pretty tough too, but
I was just so scared. So anyways, the day of
the fight comes after school, everybody the whole day is
talking about it. Hey, you're gonna fight him today. I'm
like yeah, yeah, And I felt really ready, like I'm
gonna go fight this guy. And so I remember I
(06:28):
told you I have no friends. I'm writing my skateboard
to the park after school and I look at the
park and it's like half a mile away, you know,
it's down the end of the street. So I could
see it, and I'm not. I'm not kidding you. Here.
There must have been a thousand kids at this park
from other schools, from the high school drive people driving
in like they're gonna hear it. We're you're here at
the fights. We're gonna watch the big, the big showdown.
(06:50):
And so I'm by myself and I'm like, you know what,
screw this. I'm out of here right because that's a
no win. I'm like, I'm not gonna show it there
by myself because it's a no win. If I do
start beating this guy up, all his friends are gonna
jump in. It just was not worth it to me,
And so I did what I normally do. I went
and ran and hit and I went to my house
hit in my house, and eventually they caught on that
(07:13):
I'm not showing up. But they know where I live
because it was park was right down the street from
my house. There must have been fifty kids out in
front of my house, knocking on the door, banging on
the door, throwing rocks at the window, saying come out,
come out, whimp. Even he drives by, he's driving or
in the car driving. I'm on a skateboard and they're
trying to get me to come out, and I hear
and I'm hiding in a closet inside my house. So
(07:35):
that was that one thing. And then eighth grade graduation
shows up. Now it gets even worse at school, so
I really have no friends. I start playing basketball at
this point too, um, because I was the only thing
I could do by myself. And so, uh, graduation comes.
He shows up. He's there waiting for me. I guess,
um graduation happens. Everybody throws their hat up. I don't
(07:57):
I go and hide. I got my all my family there,
I got my cousin, my uncle's, my mom, my brother,
and they're looking for me. And I'm like, where the
hell is Tony? And I'm over there hiding behind a
wall and they all literally come up like out of
a movie, and they find me hiding. And that was
the lowest point in my life. It probably still is
(08:18):
the lowest, one of the lowest top two. And I
see the look on my mom's face, and I see
the look on my brother's face, and my mom is
just disappointed. She won't even say a word, and my
brother mows the words like what are you doing? It
was what are you doing and I felt so angry,
like this raid started building up inside me, and this
(08:40):
incredible sadness and this feeling of of fuck it, like
I'm so tired of feeling like this. I'm I've been
feeling this for the last months. And I went out
there and I said, I'm I'm gonna go fight this guy.
And I went looking for him and I couldn't find him. Uh.
And now that that was like a new feeling though,
I'd hit that rock bottom and I said, screw it.
(09:01):
And that's a good point to be. It's like kind
of like a surrender, basically saying I'm never gonna go
through I never will see that look on their face
again ever again. They will never feel that way. And
I'm never running from anything in my life ever again.
I will face it the best I can. And so
fast forward to freshmen football the next Remember I told you,
Pop Warner, I'd played with these guys for two years.
They know me by now, and they see me showing up.
(09:23):
And I remember one of the best players on this team,
this a guy who ended up becoming a really good
friend of mine named Erica's comput He was like the
young stud everybody's like yeah, that guy's going pro. He's
like knocking kids out and uh. He's looking at me
and he's like, Gonzalez, what are you doing here? Again,
like literally said Gonzaez, what are you doing? And I'm like,
I don't I want to try out. So first day
of practice, um of pads comes on and they have
this drill called Oklahoma drill and he's at the front
(09:47):
of the line and I'm like, thank god, I don't
have to go against this monster. And he calls me
to the front of the line. He goes, come here,
come up here. Uh, and I'm like oh, and my
heart starts pumping in that fear starts coming back and
I said, no, not this time, It's not gonna happen.
And so they blew the whistle. It was like two
bulls in the ring. We hit each other so hard
and it was a stalemate. Nobody won. And I remember
(10:09):
that was the first time in my football career that
I felt like I got this. If I could take
it against this guy, I can take it against anybody.
And after that it was just I was good that year.
I was like one of the top three players on
the team, but I still wasn't the best Eric was
the best. Uh. But then by the time I was
a senior, I was first team All American in football,
and then I also played basketball too, like you said,
(10:29):
but those that lesson right there, it's it's I believe
I've talked about it before. Life boils down to a
couple of key moments where you can either go right,
or you can go left, or you can stay the same,
you can get worse from it, or you can stay
the same, or you can choose this direction and that
direction though the good direction direction is gonna give you
growth is choosing to go past that fear. There's fear there,
(10:53):
but life takes off on the other side of fear.
And it's happened to me so many times, and it
keeps coming up. It's been like a common theme in
my life. You hit that wall, you bang your head
against that wall over and over and over again until
you can finally get over it. Uh. And beauty is
there though, freedoms there. Uh. And it's it's it's taken off.
It's it's helped my life taken take off so many times.
(11:15):
It's incredible moment. A lot of this stuff is fresh
because you're you know, a month as a Hall of
Famer now right. It was literally thirty days ago, and
I want to I want to hear about it. That feels.
But you know, it's like everybody, Oh, well, Tony will
box you out like he bodies people, like he's getting rebounds.
He's a ferocious athlete. So if you put the ball high,
he's gonna go and he's gonna beat anybody because he's
gonna you know, it's a technical thing because of your
(11:36):
dual sportness. It doesn't sound like that's actually the reality
of the situation. It sounds like you had this transformational
experience as a fourteen year old. You know, you were traveling,
you're changing schools, making that doesn't even sound like you're
making new friends necessarily at this point, but having to,
you know, go to school with an entirely new group
of people every couple of years. And and I mean,
(11:57):
that's a really significant, un fair advantage if you can
take that kind of the challenge and turn it into
a into a benefit. I imagine that made you pretty
ferocious going after anything that you wanted in this Yeah. Yeah,
and and you know, and I believe life goes in
stages because it doesn't stop there and yeah, you're gonna
You're gonna hit the bump, hit the winter storm, and
then you get through it. Then you get to the
(12:18):
summer stages. But then it's cycles, you know. And so
again it happened to me when I went to college,
same thing. My first two years. It was tough. Um,
I wasn't focused. It didn't one because I was scared. Though.
Now now it's like, Okay, what else are you gonna do? Now,
what's the next lesson that you gotta learn to keep
leveling up to keep being the best version of yourself?
And that lesson was was focus. I wasn't before. I
(12:40):
could get by on talent and fearlessness. But now I
wasn't focused though, And so, uh, you know, I'm up
at Berkeley and I'm doing what Berkeley students do. Back then,
you know, read between the lines. I was partying, hanging out,
you know, doing all sorts of things stuff that's legal now.
I was doing it every day back then. Uh, and
you know, you just I would remember standing sitting on
(13:01):
the side of a mountain, uh, at like three o'clock
in the morning after a night out of hanging out
and looking at the planes come in and out of
Oakland Airport. And I remember I said to myself, it
was just it was two years in at this point,
going into my my third year as a junior. I
had some good games at basketball, had some good games
at football, but nothing great. I wasn't All League. I
(13:22):
wasn't even the fourth best Titan and the Pac ten
back then I went an honorable mention, first team, second team,
third team, All packed in or honorable mention. Uh and so,
and I came in highly touted, and so I was
disappointing a lot of people. They were like, man, if
he could just tap into his potential. And so I
saw these planes and I was like, okay, I was
just I literally projected myself on these planes. One of
(13:43):
these planes was going back home to California, and I
can go get a job working, uh you know, at
a doing at a gas station, or or doing something struggling,
or I could be on that plane going someplace exotic,
going to a new city because I'm an athlete, and
maybe I can be on a pro team if I
would just focus. And it dawned on me in that second,
literally was just a split second, and I changed everything,
(14:07):
stopped hanging out late, started focusing on my class, started
taking advantage of the professors at Berkeley, started going to
the workouts, but really being present during the workouts and
focusing and setting goals and on stuff. Six months later,
I'm a first team All American. I had this unbelievable
run in the tournament for basketball, which helps me play
football better along with all the other sports surfing and
(14:28):
skateboarding and all that stuff as a kid, um, and
I was the thirteen pick in the draft because you
and I left you early and it was I mean,
if you would ask anybody the year before that, they
would have said, no way, no way. And so it
helps me too with you know, being a father of
four kids, and you want the best for your children
(14:51):
so much, and you your heart breaks when it doesn't
go right for them. But at the same time you
have to you have to be able to garden them.
I guess should look at them as as flowers, is
what I always say. Where you can't force the flower open.
You can give them the water and the fertilizer and
make sure the sun's coming in and all that good stuff,
but they have to open on their own. And for
(15:12):
me it's been that way, um, where I go through
these life lessons and then I had one more when
I got to the pros my second year in the league.
I love the quote, you know like pressure makes diamonds.
You know, not always obviously, but it can be the
thing that results and you know, um, you know incredible things.
But yeah, to that point, you know in the league,
I know that you know, two years and you were
dropping passes. You were you know, not necessarily you know,
(15:35):
achieving your potential to to to use your words and uh,
and you started hitting the books, you know, and and um,
that's always fascinating to me because you know, and the
players that I do know, um, I have learned only
through you know, knowing a handful of of of guys
who have gone through the league or at different leagues.
It's not necessarily like an intellectual hotbed inside of a
locker room. It's not like necessarily the culture in a sense.
(15:58):
And um, in entrepreneurship and gen or all like us
are grinders, right, like we're smart enough with a group
of people, we can accomplish great things. And then there's
one percent who are just enigmas. They can build the
whole company themselves. They don't need other people they're brilliant
in there, and that to me is like the athlete
that can just sort of like show up and because
they're so you know, freak of nature talented that they
can sort of just force you know that the results
(16:21):
um in your case and you know, it sounded like
and I read that you read hundreds of books in
this era? Is that real? Like you're that's that's that's
the true story, true story, Okay story, So where'd you start? Like,
what was the where did that begin? Well, your audience,
I'm sure it's probably not football centric, but the football
centric people that are listening to they probably know this story.
But real quick, I just wondered cap that second year
(16:42):
in the league. I let the NFL and drop passes,
drop sixteen balls probably lead to thirty thirty five missed
opportunities for my team and for myself. I got benched twice,
got booed by the home crowd. I told you I
was thirteen picking the draft. I've never been bowed before.
And so I went to a deep depression of drinking
and doing hanging out late. Yeah yeah, I remember locking,
(17:03):
locking myself in the room and just pounding alcohol and
and crying and just really hit that low point because
it means a lot to me. And it wasn't a
lack of hard work. I was working my ass off,
I was doing what was asked of me up to
that point where I was getting the workouts in. I
was working hard at practice. But once again, there's that
life lesson that I've been very fortunate. All this bad
(17:27):
ship that's happened to me. It's like fertilizer as far
as I'm concerned. Where it was, it was good. It
was I needed that, and you've got to find a
way to embrace those situations in life and understand that
there's a lesson there, and the bigger the ship, the
bigger the rebound is going to be. I really do
believe that. I've talked to a lot of successful people,
and I've read a lot of these books, and it
(17:49):
seems the people that have gone through the worst stuff
are have the biggest rebound, the biggest you know, you
hear business people that lost it all and then they
built their comping up to even now billions of dollars
now because they've learned. And for me, UM, I got
a letter during my second year from my brother, a
little small letter, UM one of my adopted brothers have
I have three adopted brothers, and Donnie he just says, Hey, Tony,
(18:12):
I don't know what's wrong with you. But that's not
the Tony that I know. Get back to that Tony
that we all know. There's something going on. I don't
even know what it is. And he gave me a
book of quotes from vincelam Bardi. You know, the greatest
moment in a man's life is when he lies totally
exhausted on the battlefield glory. It's like stuff like that.
And it spoke to me and it hit me right
in my soul because I needed that at that that
(18:34):
at that moment. And off of that, like, I had
never bought a book before. Uh, you never bought a
book before. I bought a book when I was in
seventh grade called Boos. But I'm talking. I never thought
of reading of you know, besides required reading at school.
So I went on a bought a big, old, thick
book by Vince LAMBARTI. I think it's when pride mattered
the name of the book, and I just devoured it.
(18:56):
It spoke to me on the formula for success. You know,
success leaves clues and so Uh. He off of that book,
I started reading, you know, Phil Jackson books. I started reading, Uh,
Michael Jordan's books, Tiger Woods, Uh, reading about Barry Sanders,
Jerry Right, started reading Great Coaches, Lou Holtz started reading.
(19:18):
Then I got into spirituality books that have to do
with success leveling up emotionally, spiritually even even before the
spiritual and physical, because that's something believed. I don't and
I don't know how you made that jump. Do you
think that it changed the way you related to your
coaches and two players that were like in the league, Like,
was there another level that you got access to because
you were investing in yourself or finding this avenue of
(19:40):
self growth? It opens your eyes. And first of all,
coaches love this too. When they see a guy busting
his ass trying to get better. That's what coaches, that's
what parents want, that's what bosses want, and you want
that of your employees that you love an employee who's
gonna go out there and do what it takes to
get better. And so that was me now and I
changed with my whole routine, you know, because before I
was able to just show up up because especially at
(20:01):
the professional ranks and this is business. Now. When you
get into the world, you start your own business or whatever,
first of all, you're just a me too, because everybody's
done it. And so what's really going to separate you
isn't your brain? It isn't. Very rarely is it? And
very rarely in the NFL. Uh does the most talented
guy just dominate all the time. It's the guy that
can connect his mind to his heart. Uh. And then
(20:24):
his routine. And so for me, I saw Jerry Rice
would catch his work his workout routine would make him
throw up during the off season. Uh. And you hear
stories like with Kobe Bryant getting three thousand makes three
thousand makes that takes like five hours in the gym.
And so for me, I said, I'm gonna start going
out before practice and I'm gonn catch a hunter balls
(20:45):
before practice, which I never did before, never had to
I was talented. And then during practice, when the defense
is going, the offense takes the rest. So instead of
me sitting there taking a rest, I'm gonna get another
many catches as I can. And I'm talking catches in
the moment with your chine strap on, with your mouthpiece
in focused catches putting yourself in position. After practice, the
(21:05):
coach would do, you could call everybody up, excuse the team.
Everybody would go in to go do what theever. And
you know me, I'd go in, go get some eat
or whatever it is, gonna play video games, go see
your girlfriends, whatever you gotta do. But for me, I'm
gonna stay out there. I'm gonna get another hundred catches.
And that routine changed everything for me. Uh. And then
you start thinking about how winners think, because it's a
thought process. It's not don't don't drop this ball when
(21:28):
it's coming to me, because I used to think that,
don't drop it, don't drop it. Now it's two. I
got this is balls mind. Well, I've never thought about
connecting these two things until this conversation, but it actually
sounds like the process that great architects go through. Um.
When we started our Powder Mountain project, it was like
the first time I was ever in like a meaningful
architectural conversation, and I'd be like, Oh, that's set of
(21:48):
beautiful building, let's work with them. And the people who
are you know, hip to the game would be like,
you don't necessarily want to judge an architect based off
of one building. You want to look at their process
and who has the right process for the right projects.
And when you start approaching it from that perspective, you
start seeing like the real art form and the people
that really are you know, the there are only a
(22:09):
handful and then and everybody else essentially is drafting off
of those who have sort of and it sounds like
you you sort of saw the same thing. It's the process,
it's your routine, it's the ways in which you are
investing above and beyond and that dictated the results. Yeah. Yeah,
there's a great book out there for for business and entrepreneurials,
right Dalio Principles Pattern recognition totally okay, And like I
(22:31):
talked about success leaves clues you see what has worked
for people before because none of it's really new, it's
all cyclical and so and and for me another thing,
this is important because I just learned this lately. Um.
When I say lately, like in the last month, what
I also did, I was able to get into my
heart when I played after that third year, and I
(22:53):
had been in my heart before it comes and goes.
People all have glimpses of being in their heart, and
my things. I had to define that what does that
mean to me? To play with your heart? Coaches say
it all the time, play with your heart, play with
your heart. That's that's something you'll hear coaches say a lot,
and I'm like a lot of times as players, they
don't know what the hell that means? What? What? What
(23:14):
does that mean to you? And so for me, I
have to define what is being in your heart? And
for me, there's no fear of judgment when you're in
that zone or that heart or whatever you want to
that flow, there's no You have compassion for yourself, you
have forgiveness. If I drop a ball, I can forgive
myself now and move on. I can have presence. That's it.
(23:35):
That's in your heart. That's when you were in that flow.
And so I've just recently connected the dots too to
that aspect of me being a great football player playing
in my heart. Now, let's bring that to every other
part of my life. Let's bring that to my wife
and to my kids. And when I'm sitting here talking
to you like I want to be wide open, I
(23:56):
mean that that's I'm more in my heart just listening
in your heart for sure. Yeah. Well, and and and
the thing is, though some people think that's corny or
some people think that's woo woo or whatever you want
to call it, but it's what athletes do. That's what
Michael Jordan was doing, That's what Tiger Woods is doing,
that's what that's what great tennis players, that's what Koco
Graf is doing a fifteen years old when she's out
(24:17):
on that court. Or artists or artians positions, can you
come from that place? And I've also connected the dots
that because I have four kids. It's basically just remembering
who you are and where you come from. When you're
a child, that's when you're you've learned the most. This
is all proven through science. That's when you're like a
spunge for knowledge. And I think it's because your heart
(24:38):
is wide open. As a child, you you're you, you
go through your fears a lot easier. This is why
learning to be a snowboarder or do a gymnastics you
gotta start when you're young, because you'll go through your
fears a lot. Quicker doesn't mean get afraid. You're not
afraid to dance, You're not afraid to sing at the
top of you're you're not afraid of people when you're
that young, or you go through the fear a lot quicker,
(24:59):
but there's no race, is fear or not capacity? Yes,
absolutely there there's no racism as a as a nothing
that's different. It might look weird for a second, but
then you go through it you say, hello, oh, actually
it is, and and that allows you when you're in
that frame of mind, you learn quicker. And so why
can't we as adults get to that point? And that's
(25:21):
something I've been experimenting with today. Like literally my meditations
I meditate twice a day is really about opening that heart,
getting back to what I was on that football field,
and bringing that to my television now that I do
on Sundays, bringing that to my wife, bringing that to
every situation as much as I possibly can. And first
of all, it's more fun. You can get there the
other way. You can be a logical person who's in
(25:42):
your head and hard working, uh, and you'll achieve success
if you work hard enough and you're disciplined enough. You
hear all that ship, which is good, but you're not
gonna have as much fun. It's fun being in flow.
It's it is fun. To be in your heart. That's
when that's when it's really the good stuff. It's easier
and it's more on or you can do it the
hard way and be in your head and be afraid
(26:03):
of what people think and be like I have been.
I've been afraid of what people think. That's that's what
it is. I love this. I definitely don't play husband
the way I played dad, you know what I mean.
And I could bring more of the way I played
dad to the way I play husband. And I love
my wife with all my heart. However, I sometimes I'm
just you know, I certainly am not bringing that mentality
that you're talking to to the level that I can.
(26:24):
And I love that that's something that you've dedicated yourself too. Yeah,
I want to connect it to the stuff that you're
doing a bit now today too. I mean, like one
of the things I think about and you've mentioned the
spirituality piece um and making that it sounds like that
had a big, big impact, Like you're finding your heart
and did you have like a gateway drug to that?
Like how did you get introduced to that whole sphere
of influence? I had a girl I was dating, Okay,
(26:47):
actually I ended up having a child with her. Uh Lauren, Yeah, Uh,
Nico's my oldest. Uh he's eighteen now. But you give
me a book by Deepak Chopra called The Seven Spiritual
Laws of Success. And I have a background growing up.
I grew up in a Seventh day Adventist religion where
my dad would pick us up every Saturday. Um. When
I said my parents got divorced, I still saw my
(27:08):
my biological father every Saturday pick us up and drop
us off that evening. Among other things he did some
took us on trips to He wasn't an absentee father.
He was there. But so I had that foundation. And
I've definitely moved away from the church as i got
older for different reasons and I'm gonna talk about that.
But then I got more into the spirituality aspect of things.
(27:28):
And in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success is a
great book. Wayne Dyer is. I went and saw him
speak back when I was playing. I took a couple
of teammates from my team, and I'm sure that was
mind blowing. It's mind blowing when you can combine that
with with the hard work, the discipline, the quote unquote
you know that that that case. I I don't know,
(27:51):
I want to call it caveman, but that approach that
football and sports brings, like you work your grass off
and you get disciplined and you'll get better, and no
mercy and all that stuff, But I believe the opposite
is true. When you can give mercy a little bit
to yourself and forgiveness and compassion, combine that with the
work ethic and the tenationous nous and the and the
(28:11):
integrity of sports, you'll go even further. And that helped
me become a better player. We're in the temple of
the hustle, Like the whole world around us celebrates hustle,
and like if you're making it into the pros and
any capacity and any anything, you hustle, like that's the prerequisite.
And and to take that approach, like you know, that
(28:33):
forgiveness aspect that that's something myself and my partners always
did as entrepreneurs, just keeping and we would call it
keeping the frame of an artist, right, Like an artist
you can experiment, you can try things you can you know,
and and we didn't. It took us a decade to
to to pause, Like the first ten years was all
just like okay, I'm gonna work as absolutely hard as
I can on the things that I'm doing, and then
(28:54):
you realize there's no leveraged opportunities to that. That's like
beating the game level by level. That's how most people
are playing. And if you want to, you know, get
do you ever play Super Mario Brothers and you know
that there's a whistle, you can get the whistle and
you can skip to the eighth or ninth level or whatever.
Like I, I, you know, took a time in my
career to suck at what I was doing on a
daily basis because I realized that what got me here
(29:16):
won't get me there. And it sounds like this was
one of those gates as well, where it's like combining
sort of the human aspect, the heart to the hustle.
Was was was a major, major moment. This is great.
I didn't know any of this about you. Yeah, wait,
when you keep learning and so transition is another thing
that that was another thing in my life that I
had to learn because I got done playing football seventeen
(29:38):
years career. Okay, now what's next. Now let's think about
athlete King of Kansas City and then in Atlanta. Yeah,
and but it. Then it's over. Literally, you're this and
then it's over the next day. And so a lot
of athletes struggle. Statistically are divorced, um or or broke
within two years of plane or both, and so you
(29:58):
struggle and you're gonna go through it. And I thought
I wasn't gonna go through it. I thought I was, well,
I'm in a good place spiritually. I got play of money.
I had a job at CBS on the main desk,
and it wasn't It took me three years of trying
to figure it out and bumping my head against the
wall where you know, I wasn't I wasn't happy. It
(30:19):
wasn't happy. Uh, And we shot out in New York
with CBS. And I remember I was sitting at a
um in a in a cafe in Barcelona with my
wife on vacation and my contract was coming up with
CBS and I was gonna sign for another three years there.
And like I said, I wasn't truly happy and had
nothing to do with CBS. They were fantastic with me,
(30:40):
and my wife goes, oh, yeah, the contract And if
I had never let anybody know, not even my wife,
and I don't even know if I really knew, I
just felt a certain way, but I didn't know, and
so it just hit me like a flash where I
still I got kind of sweaty but cold, and she's like,
what's wrong. You know you're gonna be happy about this
new contract, and I go, I don't think I want
(31:00):
to do this. And what hit me was what if
I peeked? You know, it's a scary, scary feeling to
think that your best days are behind you. And that's
what happens to a lot of athletes or business people
out there that or have this great successful business and
you ran it for ten twenty whatever it is, how
long it is, but all of a sudden it's not
(31:20):
giving you what you want anymore emotionally, but you're afraid
to make that transition to do something else, to jump
out and do something else. It's a scary, scary feeling,
and it's scared the ship out of me. And I,
like I said, I started crying. Um My wife's like,
HU give me. She's like, it's okay, it's gonna be good.
I even think about it now, I get emotional about
it because that feeling of fear of terror, uh and
(31:42):
then off of that I said, screw it. I don't
want to feel like this. And I told CBS thank you,
but no, thank you. I called my agent up, called
my manager up, and I said, I don't want to
do this. And remember they had been negotiating. They're like
they didn't believe me at first. Uh. And my my
agent at that point was like, you're making a career decision.
Here is this is a mistake, you know, because there's
(32:03):
no other jobs out there, I mean everything, all the
desk are full. And I said, I don't care. I
gotta I gotta go through it, you know. And uh.
And I had the luxury at this point of you know,
I've made some good money, so I could, I could
take it off. So I feel for people that feel
like they're in a position but at the same time,
life is poking you. At that point, it's saying, don't
(32:26):
fight that feeling. If you're feeling upset about something or scared.
I always do this. Here's the measure of how I
do it. Where if I want to do something but
I'm scared to do it, but I really do want
to do it, that's what I have to do. That's how,
that's how, that's my pointer for the direction, like you've
gotta go do it, you know. It's like jumping out
(32:47):
of a plane. I always wanted to jump out of
a plane parachute, and I was I was scared to
do it, but I really wanted it. I don't want
to feel that air and that feeling of lightness and
floating to the earth. But I'm scared shitless of it
because I could die right there. But I finally did it,
uh and it was the best feeling ever. Um And
it worked out for me with CBS. I got a
great job at Fox. A desk opened up miraculously where
(33:09):
one of the guys that left. I'm right where I
want to be. It's ten minutes from my house now,
I'm closer to my kids. And that's part of what
I always say, like life takes off on the other
side of fear. What you're afraid of is what you
have to go do. As long as it's in your
heart and you want to do it, that's how you
know where you need to go. Life is given you,
or the universe or divine or God or whatever you
believe in is that's that's the roadmap for you. That
(33:30):
you have to trust it though and know that it's
going to work out, and it's hard. I know it's hard.
I've been there, but it's how I live my life
now and it's more fun that way too. You clearly
don't have a lot of self judgment. It sounds like
it's something that you worked on and the broken yourself. Yeah,
and you're very open with your emotions, like you know
you're you're not only do you cry when these things
are taking place that you're telling us about, but you
(33:51):
also talk about it on things like podcasts are in
your life and like you're you're an alpha dude. Do
you think that that is attached to your physical health?
I believe that if your body is healthy and your
your mind of like flexible. What did I hear um?
Flexible body? Uh, flexible mind. And so that's something I've
been getting into lately because I was getting a little
(34:13):
stiff after I got down playing football. But yeah, I
believe if you take care of your mind, take care
of your body, your your your body will that's part
of your mind, that's part of your heart. Uh, it's
more free flow. And he goes back to kids. Kids
also are very flexible too, and so they're flexible with
their emotions, they're flexible with everything else. Uh. And I've
(34:33):
seen it where my tenth year in the NFL, I
was starting to slow down mentally, uh, physically, everything was
you know, the average careers two and a half years
or whatever, three years in the NFL, and I'm at
your tin which is great, and I'm like, okay, I'm
ahead of the curve here. Uh. And I felt myself
starting to slow down. I had a little health scare
where my blood got mixed up where they told him
I thought I had leukemia. It was one of the
(34:55):
scare talk talk about tears after that phone call where
I can get the call from the true a saying
that you know, you need to come back here, and
I'm like, wow, I'm not going. I'm going home. Actually
I was in Kansas City and he goes, now, well,
the doctor needs to talk to you. And I said,
all right, well I'm not going anywhere. And doctor calls
me up and gives me and says, hey, we's found
something in your blood if you need to come in
and take tests. And I said what is it? He says, well, uh,
first off, I said, well, it's just gonna affect my
(35:16):
football career. And he goes, don't worry about football right now, Tony,
We're talking about your life here. And when he said that,
I was like, the shiver came up with me. And
he's all, it looks like leukemia. He goes, so come in,
we're gonna run some tests and trust me, you're gonna
we'll get through this, and YadA YadA. So it turns
out was a blood mix up. But off of that,
it gave me a real kick in the ass that
(35:36):
I gotta make some changes. And I had been thinking
about making changes. And it's funny how life when you're
the intuition, the intention was there. I was reading this
book called the China Study, which is a pro vegan
book whole foods, plant based diet and the evidence to
support it, and I just said, screw it, I'm going
all in and I went vegan. I was vegan for
(35:57):
about two months. Uh felt the clarity of mind come.
I felt more regular, I felt more energy, I felt
my muscles and joints felt better, like everything was better,
felt more vibrant, open, And off of that, I made
some some huge changes. You know, I was before that.
(36:18):
I mean, I was your fast food king, you know,
and you see it by the athletes, believe it or not,
they'll come into on game day they're eating Popeye's chicken
and stuff like that. It's just it's it's horrendous. What
makes sense to me if that's what you always did
and that's how your body, you know, processes calories and
that's what you know, that's that Changing that often can
be a bigger risk than not are you still and
(36:40):
are you still vegan? And vegan it didn't last that
long and last two months, but then I made changes
off of that, like that vegan basically right, like you incorporate,
you know, and like it was it like under sixteen
ounces of meat a month or something. I'm pretty careful
with it. Rarely eat meat unless it's a special occasion
or you know, if we go somewhere and someone's like, hey,
you gotta try Port's amateur, it's amazing, I'll be like, Okay,
(37:02):
let's do it. But for the most part, I'm huge
into Green's green smoothies with broccoli and cilantro and parsley.
Every day I do this, make a huge green smoothie,
Try to use much vegetables because your body feels good.
And I still incorporate a little a little bit of
h meat into two things. But the beautiful thing about
nowadays that they have alternative meats now, you know, beyond
(37:24):
meat is amazing, tastes great, gonna beyond meat burger and
that kind of satisfies my craving when I want meat, um,
but you feel so much better. I started lasting longer
on the football field, Like I said in the fourth courter,
I wasn't getting tired anymore. And that's what prompted me
to write the book on the all pro diet back
long time ago, uh to to really try to help people.
(37:47):
And you see it now with athletes. You see Tom Brady,
you look at his routine while he stayed so healthy
is long. It's it's it's not just showing up. It's
not just genetics, folks, it's it's taking care of your mind.
And it's not just sport. I mean, like, I think
that our sperm count is down half in like fifty years,
and you know, there's a bunch of reasons. But I'm
sure as we were talking about Game Changers, Susie Cameron
(38:08):
James James Cameron's movie that you were at the premiere
of last night and there's that part in that where
they they measure the sperm count of these athletes. It's
like double if they have a vegetarian meal the night
before versus eating meat right And there's all of these
other physiological impacts, but the idea that like you opening
your heart has a mind body connection, that's that's literally
(38:30):
creating more blood flow, so you're recovering faster and potentially
like and were you were you conscious of these things
as principles as you were gaining them? Did you do
you write these things down? Or did these just become
part of who you are? Like what's your process? So
I wrote all this stuff that really the ship down
right right right This morning, I'm talking to my nine
year old and he comes into my room because my
morning preparation. I'll go into my room. I'll do a
(38:53):
quick meditation, and then I have a little journal that
I've written my rules of success according to what I think.
Whether I'll read a book or I'll get inspired by
a thought, I'll write it down if it means something
to me. And now I get to see that every
day and it becomes part of me. And so that's
what I did. When I played football. Used to write
letters to myself at the bottom of the sheet, whatever
it is to motivate myself, like, hey, their doubting you
(39:14):
this week and now that, especially as I got older
and they think you're old, they think you don't have
it anymore. You have to go out there, improve right,
play at one play at a time, Play with your heart,
play with excellence, play with pride, play with commitment, play
with your whatever it is. You just these little reminders.
What you focus on expands and this has proven. Now
this is quantum physics, and so you need to fill
your brain up with the most positive images of yourself.
(39:37):
And this is part of visualization. And it goes back
to sports. This isn't woo woo stuff. This is Michael Jordan.
What's results. It's not like, yeah, debate you like I mean,
what am I supposed to say? This is not how
it works based on what like I mean, you did it.
It's it's it's your life. It's just incredible. And and
now that you're you know, pretty transitioned at this point,
(39:57):
although you obviously you're still you know, hosting the stuff
with football, tell me, tell me more about like the
businesses that you're building. And then obviously you have the
podcast now, Well, podcast is what I've been really excited
lately because, uh, you know, around three years ago, my
wife was like, you need to do a podcast. You know,
you got all this knowledge and people people don't know
this ship about you, and well, who the hell am
(40:20):
I is? The way I looked at like, yeah, I
was part of scared, you know, scared of because once
you put it out there to people will critique it.
There You're gonna have critiques. Uh, I mean just look
at YouTube. I was watching this unbelievable inspirational father something.
He was working with gang members, saying the best lessons
he's ever learned is from gang members. And he was
(40:40):
given this heartfelt and I cried when I was watching
he was It was really one of those two And
I don't cry that easy. I hope I'm not coming
off like that. Now. You're just giving us the key moments, man,
You need the key moments. And I remember looking at
and then you look at the reviews, like, you know,
nine thousand some people liked it and then two d
and thirty six people gave it a down thumbs down,
And I'm like, was two and thirty six people? What
(41:01):
the hell are they looking at? So people I always
felt like, and I would worry about those. That's the
problem with our society right now, as we worry about
those two thirty six instead of the ten thousand people
that actually really liked it. It's like that two thirty
six has a bigger voice. And for me, that affected me.
And so I had always been like, Okay, I don't
want to do a podcast, and she was and finally
it just I just said, screw it, why not? You're right,
(41:24):
I am a Hall of Fame football player. I've I've like,
I've read literally hundreds and hundreds of books, maybe maybe
thousands of books at this point. I'm still reading right now,
read two books at a time, and they're usually on
this subject of growth and and being the best version
of yourself. And so if I can help some people
out there and they can hear my story, especially from
a big football player, uh, and I can tell you
(41:46):
my secrets, my lessons, my routines, and it's gonna help
you be the better, better version of yourself. Now we're
helping everybody. What you're doing right now is amazing. You know,
you're helping people go out there and and conquer their
dreams and feel good about it and do it the
best way. And you're giving people a little tips. And
that's what I want to do. That's what we're all
in this together too. And so I did. I do
(42:07):
the podcast now called Wide Open, which will start here
in mid September, uh, where we bring people on. We're
talking about this, we talking about leveling up. I want
to hear your story and I want people to walk away,
you know, from from what's your sleep habits, which you
know by I'm a big bio hacker. I'm looking for
ways to improve my brain, my heart, open up, meditation techniques,
also how you grew up, what's your story and read
(42:28):
between the lines, because we all have the same story.
You know, there's there's there's anger, there's envy, there's jealousy,
there's unforgiveness. Those are stories that are embedded in everybody's story.
And listen to how they got through it. I'm inspired
by that. I want people to be inspired by that
because that's what's gonna make this place a better place
for all of us. Uh. So I'm doing that, and
(42:49):
then uh, business wise, UH, I was investing beyond Meat. Congratulations.
I'm part of the app Zero, which is a fasting app,
which we're gonna be ex ending here. I wish I
could tell you some details. But my partner Mike Mazer,
who was amazing, I actually worked with him on fit Star,
which was acquired by fit Bit. Uh. And so I
(43:09):
was there from the beginning. I got to see that
grow into what it was and had a really good
exit from that. And so Zero is kind of the
next phase of what we're doing. Do you inimate and fast? Yes?
Inimate and fast? How often? Uh? Probably daily? Yeah, yeah awesome,
unless unless something comes up. But most of the time, Yeah,
it's it's what about what about yoga? Should we yoga?
Should we not? Yoga? I had never been in the yoga,
(43:31):
but I just I just got back from Peru. Yeah.
I did a little week long cleansing down there. Uh,
you know, abundance, meditation, stretching, yoga. Uh. Love to me
and just me and my wife explain, you know, trying
to get our relationship better. We've been married, we've been
together almost fifteen years. If it gets stale, so we
(43:52):
gotta we gotta rEFInd that spark. And we did. It
was amazing. Uh. And so I got off of that though.
The flexibility of body affects your flexibility of mind and soul.
That's what I learned down there. And so I've really
been getting into stretching every day, like really really not
yoga though I'm not going to the class yet. Now,
you know, I don't have a mat. I just get
(44:14):
on my my carpet and I do this twenty minute
stretching routine every day and then go into my push ups,
sit ups kind of my herschel Walker without stretching routine,
and I feel amazing. It's it's I feel like I'm
ten years younger already. And I know you have the
infrared Matt, and uh do you do the chili pad?
Is that right? I got a chili pad, I got
a biomat, got an infrared sauna, I got a full tub.
(44:35):
Now I just I gotta put it together. It came
to the house yesterday. I gotta that little inversion table,
spine out. I'm in all of that. I have a
jew of light, little red light therapy. It's it's actually
really cool that. In fact, from a buddy of mine,
um named Dan Party, Who's I think he's got a
He's definitely he's got a podcast. He's a PhD uh,
(44:56):
really smart guy and he said, get this jew because
actually they have the most evidence out of all that stuff,
the most evidence on how it helps your body, uh
and your cell growth and keeping young, all that different stuff.
I'm not really go into the science because I'm not qualified,
but I've read the research on it and uh, and
I feel good when I when I use it. So
I do all that stuff, your way of thinking and
(45:18):
your way of seeing, and it's clearly what you know
gave you the permission to become the fullest potentially yourself,
your story. It really makes me think about how you
both have the provenance and you you really value where
you come from, and you don't let that be the
enemy of progress like you seem to like to combine
both the bleeding edge and living on your edge with
(45:38):
giving yourself ultimate permission to fail. If you do, and
um man, I mean, if more of us ran at
our fears versus away from him, I think we'd live
in a much you know, happier, healthier world. And I mean,
thank you man, thank you for coming on, thank you
for doing what you're doing. Really appreciate you coming, thank you,
Thanks for having of course be great man man and
(46:00):
Tony Gonzalez is a forced nature. Um, it's pretty humbling
to spend time with this guy. We've hung out a
handful of times and have some mutual friends, and I
knew that he was the boss, but good God, So ultimately,
you know, I am just blown away. Thank you for listening,
and if you're still listening, Um, you know, I always
(46:21):
at the end of these podcasts, like you take some
notes and have some takeaways that I thought were, you know,
really valuable and indicative, and and Tony basically speaks and
platitudes and wisdom. But you know, one of the ones
that I pulled that that really stood out to me.
One was playing with your heart and really understanding what
that means. And you know, if it's not fun, it
(46:42):
doesn't count. And you know, if you can connect your
heart to what you're doing, that means that you're enthused.
It means that you love it. And that's the only
way you're going to compete at the highest level, because
if you don't, somebody that does is going to take
those hundred extra passes or they're gonna put in that
extra work, They're gonna read the extra books. Success leaves
clue is. I love that quote and it's fact, you know,
(47:03):
like it's a lot of these paths have been walked,
a lot of those you know, you know, first through
the wall gets a lot of shrapnel, you know. So ultimately,
in this life, you've got to do the things that
you're afraid of. As Tony also said, but you know,
the people that came before you, you can stand on
their shoulders. And frankly, anybody accomplishing anything great has adopted
that principle. I've never met anyone in my life that doesn't,
(47:25):
you know, take from you know, those that came before them,
UM in a way that allows them to accomplish anymore.
And what you focus on expands. It sounds like Tony's
experience in eighth grade, you know, taught him that he
could break a cycle and he could go at his
fears versus letting them dictate what he did. But I
love the principle of what you focus on expands. And
(47:46):
it's fact. It's like, you know, what we do um
becomes who we are. And and if we're not careful,
you know, our thoughts become the things that end up
manifesting in our worlds UM and in our and in
our work and in our relationship. And so if you
if you manage and maintain and monitor you know your thoughts,
that it ends up resulting in the outcome. If you
(48:07):
focus on the process, you end up getting the product.
You don't have to worry about dropping balls because your
process is tight. Thank you, Tony, Thank you guys for listening.
This is the art of the hustle. I'm Jeff Rosenthal.
I'll see you next time.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how the world's most fascinating people have
hustled their way to the top. I'm your host, Jeff Rosenthal,
co founder of Summit and owner of Powder Mountain Ski
Resort in Utah, and in today's episode, I get to
sit down with one of the most respected NFL players
to ever play the game, nineteen first Ballot Hall of
Fame inductee and someone unfortunate enough to call my friend,
(00:29):
Tony Gonzalez. For those listening, Tony is a former NFL
tight end who played seventeen seasons, fourteen of which ended
in Pro Bowls, and he retired as one of the
greats to ever play the position, in the second all
time leading receiver in terms of yardage ever. He's also
the host of the podcast Wide Open with Tony Gonzalez
(00:49):
and also does a lot of the hosting for NFL
broadcasts on television, etcetera. Please welcome to the podcast, Tony
gun Salas. Thank you for coming. We really appreciate it.
I know we're teen minutes from your home, which is wonderful. Perfect. Yeah,
and you grew up out here Torrance Huntington's Torrance is
where I was born, but I grew I grew up
all over. You know. We didn't had that much money
(01:09):
when I was a kid, so uh it was Long Beach, uh, Cerritos, Norwalk, Westminster,
Fountain Valley, and Huntington and then we finally pretty much
settled on Huntson Beach, moved around six seven times by
the time I was in sixth grade. And so that
was where we went to Huntington's and and lived in
a a little uh two bedroom condo, which is me
(01:31):
and my mother. My parents were divorced at this point,
got divorced when I was really young, and we're on
welfare and and living in these this place called Continentals,
which is kind of like project it is, it's Project
Housing Button Huntington Beach. So I'm not in the hood
by any means, but it's definitely the poor side of
Huntington Beach. Uh. And then we met my stepdad, Michael Saltzman,
(01:52):
who came and my mom fell in love with this man,
this beautiful Jewish man, and uh he had a little
coin uh not too rich, so middle we moved on
to the middle class neighborhood and then pretty much State
and Huntington Beach and and the rest is history. I
guess incredible. Well, I mean, that's an amazing story and
I want to go back to that and hear how
that you know whether or not that played part of
(02:12):
your motivation. But you know, I think that for football fans,
you're you're pretty universally known people. I mean, you're you're,
you know, the number two in terms of receiving yardage
in the history of the game. You were in fourteen
Pro Bowls and seventeen seasons. You missed two games, Is
that right? Like you? So you're like you, I mean,
you're your first first ballot Hall of Famer. So if
(02:34):
football fans know that you have been dominating the sport
that you're in since the moment that you started playing it,
uh And and you know, for this, I'm hoping that
there's this is gonna introduce, you know, people that might
not know aspects of your background or that story and
really what separated you. And that's why you know, starting
with you know, growing up here, I know, you went
to cal Berkeley UM and you're two sport athlete, right,
(02:55):
You're playing basketball and football, and as I understand, also
had a huge impact on on your career. Yeah, like
the player you became or the way you play the game?
Is that was that where it really? Do you think
that was where it started to differentiate it? Were you
already dominating in high school? It didn't, It didn't always
start out that way. Um. You know, And I played
pop worn of football when I was a kid. I
was worst kid on the team. Were you really the
worst kid on the team? And hear that, but were
(03:17):
you really the worst? Three years younger than everybody? And
you know why? It was because I was scared. I
was a lot a lot of fear when I put
on the shoulder pads and the helmet because you're running
into somebody full speed, you know. So it's it was
tough for me. And I actually quit because I wasn't playing. Literally,
I would go into the game. You pay a hundred
thirty five dollars and you're supposed to be guaranteed six plays.
(03:39):
Back in the eighties. Now it's of the place, So
I didn't know they were guaranteed you. If you pay
the money, you get to play. Um, And I don't know.
That's a whole different subject. Should you be allowed to
where should you not whatever, but for me back then,
my coach still wouldn't even put me in for those
six plays, and so I ended up quitting and said,
I don't like it because I don't like contact. That's
the reason. What had nothing to do with athletic ability
(04:01):
or talent at that point, it was it was just
sheer fear of running into somebody full speed. Uh. And
then I tried out again the next year, played a
little bit. Uh. Maybe I got the ten percent, but
I didn't quit this year because my mom it was like,
you're you're not quitting. That's not you, that's not what
(04:22):
Gonzales is due. And so I went allowed to quit
that year. But something interesting happened to me. And I've
talked about this before. I don't know if you do
you know my bully story. Do you only hear the okay,
because I've told it before. Um, But basically, there's this
long story short. There was a bully that would come
down from the high school and I was in junior
high and it would come every single day. And I
(04:42):
don't even know why this guy wanted to beat me up,
just just tough guy. I still don't know to this day.
And he would come down every day. And this was
the stories back then, you know, the the Hey, this
guy he gotta fight with two guys the other day
and he took a skateboard and hit one him over
the head, then got a brick and smashed it in
his face. You know, you saw this urban legend, this guy.
So I kept getting more scared and more scared. Uh.
(05:03):
And I had a skateboard that I would strategically place
in a in a bush and I would leave as
soon as the bell ring. I would run to that
skateboard and go home. And I had no friends, like
nobody all my friends that were that I was kind
of cool going into my eighth grade year. After that,
I became like a social misfit, like uh, the P word,
you know that, that a whimp. And I wasn't going
(05:25):
to dances, I went't hanging out for school. I wasn't
talking to girls or anything like that. Total latchkey kids,
just watching TV all day. And then uh, he called
me on the phone one day and he said, hey,
why do you keep dodging me? Why don't you just
fight me quick being a pussy and fight me? And
I said, okay, well, I don't know why you want
(05:45):
to fight me. And he's like, well, you just talk
ship that's what he said, which is not true. H
And I go, okay, well give me some give me
some time to train, and uh I I we set
a date for the fight, and which was like two
or three weeks later, and like, hey, just leave me
alone until then. And so I'm training in the garage
and my whole family knew about this, and my mom especially,
(06:06):
she's a tough rock woman from the South side of Chicago,
and she's like, you need to just fight him, just
get it over with. And I have an older brother, uh,
and he's the same thing. Why don't you just get
it over with? Uh? And I'm pretty tough too, but
I was just so scared. So anyways, the day of
the fight comes after school, everybody the whole day is
talking about it. Hey, you're gonna fight him today. I'm
like yeah, yeah, And I felt really ready, like I'm
gonna go fight this guy. And so I remember I
(06:28):
told you I have no friends. I'm writing my skateboard
to the park after school and I look at the
park and it's like half a mile away, you know,
it's down the end of the street. So I could
see it, and I'm not. I'm not kidding you. Here.
There must have been a thousand kids at this park
from other schools, from the high school drive people driving
in like they're gonna hear it. We're you're here at
the fights. We're gonna watch the big, the big showdown.
(06:50):
And so I'm by myself and I'm like, you know what,
screw this. I'm out of here right because that's a
no win. I'm like, I'm not gonna show it there
by myself because it's a no win. If I do
start beating this guy up, all his friends are gonna
jump in. It just was not worth it to me,
And so I did what I normally do. I went
and ran and hit and I went to my house
hit in my house, and eventually they caught on that
(07:13):
I'm not showing up. But they know where I live
because it was park was right down the street from
my house. There must have been fifty kids out in
front of my house, knocking on the door, banging on
the door, throwing rocks at the window, saying come out,
come out, whimp. Even he drives by, he's driving or
in the car driving. I'm on a skateboard and they're
trying to get me to come out, and I hear
and I'm hiding in a closet inside my house. So
(07:35):
that was that one thing. And then eighth grade graduation
shows up. Now it gets even worse at school, so
I really have no friends. I start playing basketball at
this point too, um, because I was the only thing
I could do by myself. And so, uh, graduation comes.
He shows up. He's there waiting for me. I guess,
um graduation happens. Everybody throws their hat up. I don't
(07:57):
I go and hide. I got my all my family there,
I got my cousin, my uncle's, my mom, my brother,
and they're looking for me. And I'm like, where the
hell is Tony? And I'm over there hiding behind a
wall and they all literally come up like out of
a movie, and they find me hiding. And that was
the lowest point in my life. It probably still is
(08:18):
the lowest, one of the lowest top two. And I
see the look on my mom's face, and I see
the look on my brother's face, and my mom is
just disappointed. She won't even say a word, and my
brother mows the words like what are you doing? It
was what are you doing and I felt so angry,
like this raid started building up inside me, and this
(08:40):
incredible sadness and this feeling of of fuck it, like
I'm so tired of feeling like this. I'm I've been
feeling this for the last months. And I went out
there and I said, I'm I'm gonna go fight this guy.
And I went looking for him and I couldn't find him. Uh.
And now that that was like a new feeling though,
I'd hit that rock bottom and I said, screw it.
(09:01):
And that's a good point to be. It's like kind
of like a surrender, basically saying I'm never gonna go
through I never will see that look on their face
again ever again. They will never feel that way. And
I'm never running from anything in my life ever again.
I will face it the best I can. And so
fast forward to freshmen football the next Remember I told you,
Pop Warner, I'd played with these guys for two years.
They know me by now, and they see me showing up.
(09:23):
And I remember one of the best players on this team,
this a guy who ended up becoming a really good
friend of mine named Erica's comput He was like the
young stud everybody's like yeah, that guy's going pro. He's
like knocking kids out and uh. He's looking at me
and he's like, Gonzalez, what are you doing here? Again,
like literally said Gonzaez, what are you doing? And I'm like,
I don't I want to try out. So first day
of practice, um of pads comes on and they have
this drill called Oklahoma drill and he's at the front
(09:47):
of the line and I'm like, thank god, I don't
have to go against this monster. And he calls me
to the front of the line. He goes, come here,
come up here. Uh, and I'm like oh, and my
heart starts pumping in that fear starts coming back and
I said, no, not this time, It's not gonna happen.
And so they blew the whistle. It was like two
bulls in the ring. We hit each other so hard
and it was a stalemate. Nobody won. And I remember
(10:09):
that was the first time in my football career that
I felt like I got this. If I could take
it against this guy, I can take it against anybody.
And after that it was just I was good that year.
I was like one of the top three players on
the team, but I still wasn't the best Eric was
the best. Uh. But then by the time I was
a senior, I was first team All American in football,
and then I also played basketball too, like you said,
(10:29):
but those that lesson right there, it's it's I believe
I've talked about it before. Life boils down to a
couple of key moments where you can either go right,
or you can go left, or you can stay the same,
you can get worse from it, or you can stay
the same, or you can choose this direction and that
direction though the good direction direction is gonna give you
growth is choosing to go past that fear. There's fear there,
(10:53):
but life takes off on the other side of fear.
And it's happened to me so many times, and it
keeps coming up. It's been like a common theme in
my life. You hit that wall, you bang your head
against that wall over and over and over again until
you can finally get over it. Uh. And beauty is
there though, freedoms there. Uh. And it's it's it's taken off.
It's it's helped my life taken take off so many times.
(11:15):
It's incredible moment. A lot of this stuff is fresh
because you're you know, a month as a Hall of
Famer now right. It was literally thirty days ago, and
I want to I want to hear about it. That feels.
But you know, it's like everybody, Oh, well, Tony will
box you out like he bodies people, like he's getting rebounds.
He's a ferocious athlete. So if you put the ball high,
he's gonna go and he's gonna beat anybody because he's
gonna you know, it's a technical thing because of your
(11:36):
dual sportness. It doesn't sound like that's actually the reality
of the situation. It sounds like you had this transformational
experience as a fourteen year old. You know, you were traveling,
you're changing schools, making that doesn't even sound like you're
making new friends necessarily at this point, but having to,
you know, go to school with an entirely new group
of people every couple of years. And and I mean,
(11:57):
that's a really significant, un fair advantage if you can
take that kind of the challenge and turn it into
a into a benefit. I imagine that made you pretty
ferocious going after anything that you wanted in this Yeah. Yeah,
and and you know, and I believe life goes in
stages because it doesn't stop there and yeah, you're gonna
You're gonna hit the bump, hit the winter storm, and
then you get through it. Then you get to the
(12:18):
summer stages. But then it's cycles, you know. And so
again it happened to me when I went to college,
same thing. My first two years. It was tough. Um,
I wasn't focused. It didn't one because I was scared. Though.
Now now it's like, Okay, what else are you gonna do? Now,
what's the next lesson that you gotta learn to keep
leveling up to keep being the best version of yourself?
And that lesson was was focus. I wasn't before. I
(12:40):
could get by on talent and fearlessness. But now I
wasn't focused though, And so, uh, you know, I'm up
at Berkeley and I'm doing what Berkeley students do. Back then,
you know, read between the lines. I was partying, hanging out,
you know, doing all sorts of things stuff that's legal now.
I was doing it every day back then. Uh, and
you know, you just I would remember standing sitting on
(13:01):
the side of a mountain, uh, at like three o'clock
in the morning after a night out of hanging out
and looking at the planes come in and out of
Oakland Airport. And I remember I said to myself, it
was just it was two years in at this point,
going into my my third year as a junior. I
had some good games at basketball, had some good games
at football, but nothing great. I wasn't All League. I
(13:22):
wasn't even the fourth best Titan and the Pac ten
back then I went an honorable mention, first team, second team,
third team, All packed in or honorable mention. Uh and so,
and I came in highly touted, and so I was
disappointing a lot of people. They were like, man, if
he could just tap into his potential. And so I
saw these planes and I was like, okay, I was
just I literally projected myself on these planes. One of
(13:43):
these planes was going back home to California, and I
can go get a job working, uh you know, at
a doing at a gas station, or or doing something struggling,
or I could be on that plane going someplace exotic,
going to a new city because I'm an athlete, and
maybe I can be on a pro team if I
would just focus. And it dawned on me in that second,
literally was just a split second, and I changed everything,
(14:07):
stopped hanging out late, started focusing on my class, started
taking advantage of the professors at Berkeley, started going to
the workouts, but really being present during the workouts and
focusing and setting goals and on stuff. Six months later,
I'm a first team All American. I had this unbelievable
run in the tournament for basketball, which helps me play
football better along with all the other sports surfing and
(14:28):
skateboarding and all that stuff as a kid, um, and
I was the thirteen pick in the draft because you
and I left you early and it was I mean,
if you would ask anybody the year before that, they
would have said, no way, no way. And so it
helps me too with you know, being a father of
four kids, and you want the best for your children
(14:51):
so much, and you your heart breaks when it doesn't
go right for them. But at the same time you
have to you have to be able to garden them.
I guess should look at them as as flowers, is
what I always say. Where you can't force the flower open.
You can give them the water and the fertilizer and
make sure the sun's coming in and all that good stuff,
but they have to open on their own. And for
(15:12):
me it's been that way, um, where I go through
these life lessons and then I had one more when
I got to the pros my second year in the league.
I love the quote, you know like pressure makes diamonds.
You know, not always obviously, but it can be the
thing that results and you know, um, you know incredible things.
But yeah, to that point, you know in the league,
I know that you know, two years and you were
dropping passes. You were you know, not necessarily you know,
(15:35):
achieving your potential to to to use your words and uh,
and you started hitting the books, you know, and and um,
that's always fascinating to me because you know, and the
players that I do know, um, I have learned only
through you know, knowing a handful of of of guys
who have gone through the league or at different leagues.
It's not necessarily like an intellectual hotbed inside of a
locker room. It's not like necessarily the culture in a sense.
(15:58):
And um, in entrepreneurship and gen or all like us
are grinders, right, like we're smart enough with a group
of people, we can accomplish great things. And then there's
one percent who are just enigmas. They can build the
whole company themselves. They don't need other people they're brilliant
in there, and that to me is like the athlete
that can just sort of like show up and because
they're so you know, freak of nature talented that they
can sort of just force you know that the results
(16:21):
um in your case and you know, it sounded like
and I read that you read hundreds of books in
this era? Is that real? Like you're that's that's that's
the true story, true story, Okay story, So where'd you start? Like,
what was the where did that begin? Well, your audience,
I'm sure it's probably not football centric, but the football
centric people that are listening to they probably know this story.
But real quick, I just wondered cap that second year
(16:42):
in the league. I let the NFL and drop passes,
drop sixteen balls probably lead to thirty thirty five missed
opportunities for my team and for myself. I got benched twice,
got booed by the home crowd. I told you I
was thirteen picking the draft. I've never been bowed before.
And so I went to a deep depression of drinking
and doing hanging out late. Yeah yeah, I remember locking,
(17:03):
locking myself in the room and just pounding alcohol and
and crying and just really hit that low point because
it means a lot to me. And it wasn't a
lack of hard work. I was working my ass off,
I was doing what was asked of me up to
that point where I was getting the workouts in. I
was working hard at practice. But once again, there's that
life lesson that I've been very fortunate. All this bad
(17:27):
ship that's happened to me. It's like fertilizer as far
as I'm concerned. Where it was, it was good. It
was I needed that, and you've got to find a
way to embrace those situations in life and understand that
there's a lesson there, and the bigger the ship, the
bigger the rebound is going to be. I really do
believe that. I've talked to a lot of successful people,
and I've read a lot of these books, and it
(17:49):
seems the people that have gone through the worst stuff
are have the biggest rebound, the biggest you know, you
hear business people that lost it all and then they
built their comping up to even now billions of dollars
now because they've learned. And for me, UM, I got
a letter during my second year from my brother, a
little small letter, UM one of my adopted brothers have
I have three adopted brothers, and Donnie he just says, Hey, Tony,
(18:12):
I don't know what's wrong with you. But that's not
the Tony that I know. Get back to that Tony
that we all know. There's something going on. I don't
even know what it is. And he gave me a
book of quotes from vincelam Bardi. You know, the greatest
moment in a man's life is when he lies totally
exhausted on the battlefield glory. It's like stuff like that.
And it spoke to me and it hit me right
in my soul because I needed that at that that
(18:34):
at that moment. And off of that, like, I had
never bought a book before. Uh, you never bought a
book before. I bought a book when I was in
seventh grade called Boos. But I'm talking. I never thought
of reading of you know, besides required reading at school.
So I went on a bought a big, old, thick
book by Vince LAMBARTI. I think it's when pride mattered
the name of the book, and I just devoured it.
(18:56):
It spoke to me on the formula for success. You know,
success leaves clues and so Uh. He off of that book,
I started reading, you know, Phil Jackson books. I started reading, Uh,
Michael Jordan's books, Tiger Woods, Uh, reading about Barry Sanders,
Jerry Right, started reading Great Coaches, Lou Holtz started reading.
(19:18):
Then I got into spirituality books that have to do
with success leveling up emotionally, spiritually even even before the
spiritual and physical, because that's something believed. I don't and
I don't know how you made that jump. Do you
think that it changed the way you related to your
coaches and two players that were like in the league, Like,
was there another level that you got access to because
you were investing in yourself or finding this avenue of
(19:40):
self growth? It opens your eyes. And first of all,
coaches love this too. When they see a guy busting
his ass trying to get better. That's what coaches, that's
what parents want, that's what bosses want, and you want
that of your employees that you love an employee who's
gonna go out there and do what it takes to
get better. And so that was me now and I
changed with my whole routine, you know, because before I
was able to just show up up because especially at
(20:01):
the professional ranks and this is business. Now. When you
get into the world, you start your own business or whatever,
first of all, you're just a me too, because everybody's
done it. And so what's really going to separate you
isn't your brain? It isn't. Very rarely is it? And
very rarely in the NFL. Uh does the most talented
guy just dominate all the time. It's the guy that
can connect his mind to his heart. Uh. And then
(20:24):
his routine. And so for me, I saw Jerry Rice
would catch his work his workout routine would make him
throw up during the off season. Uh. And you hear
stories like with Kobe Bryant getting three thousand makes three
thousand makes that takes like five hours in the gym.
And so for me, I said, I'm gonna start going
out before practice and I'm gonn catch a hunter balls
(20:45):
before practice, which I never did before, never had to
I was talented. And then during practice, when the defense
is going, the offense takes the rest. So instead of
me sitting there taking a rest, I'm gonna get another
many catches as I can. And I'm talking catches in
the moment with your chine strap on, with your mouthpiece
in focused catches putting yourself in position. After practice, the
(21:05):
coach would do, you could call everybody up, excuse the team.
Everybody would go in to go do what theever. And
you know me, I'd go in, go get some eat
or whatever it is, gonna play video games, go see
your girlfriends, whatever you gotta do. But for me, I'm
gonna stay out there. I'm gonna get another hundred catches.
And that routine changed everything for me. Uh. And then
you start thinking about how winners think, because it's a
thought process. It's not don't don't drop this ball when
(21:28):
it's coming to me, because I used to think that,
don't drop it, don't drop it. Now it's two. I
got this is balls mind. Well, I've never thought about
connecting these two things until this conversation, but it actually
sounds like the process that great architects go through. Um.
When we started our Powder Mountain project, it was like
the first time I was ever in like a meaningful
architectural conversation, and I'd be like, Oh, that's set of
(21:48):
beautiful building, let's work with them. And the people who
are you know, hip to the game would be like,
you don't necessarily want to judge an architect based off
of one building. You want to look at their process
and who has the right process for the right projects.
And when you start approaching it from that perspective, you
start seeing like the real art form and the people
that really are you know, the there are only a
(22:09):
handful and then and everybody else essentially is drafting off
of those who have sort of and it sounds like
you you sort of saw the same thing. It's the process,
it's your routine, it's the ways in which you are
investing above and beyond and that dictated the results. Yeah. Yeah,
there's a great book out there for for business and entrepreneurials,
right Dalio Principles Pattern recognition totally okay, And like I
(22:31):
talked about success leaves clues you see what has worked
for people before because none of it's really new, it's
all cyclical and so and and for me another thing,
this is important because I just learned this lately. Um.
When I say lately, like in the last month, what
I also did, I was able to get into my
heart when I played after that third year, and I
(22:53):
had been in my heart before it comes and goes.
People all have glimpses of being in their heart, and
my things. I had to define that what does that
mean to me? To play with your heart? Coaches say
it all the time, play with your heart, play with
your heart. That's that's something you'll hear coaches say a lot,
and I'm like a lot of times as players, they
don't know what the hell that means? What? What? What
(23:14):
does that mean to you? And so for me, I
have to define what is being in your heart? And
for me, there's no fear of judgment when you're in
that zone or that heart or whatever you want to
that flow, there's no You have compassion for yourself, you
have forgiveness. If I drop a ball, I can forgive
myself now and move on. I can have presence. That's it.
(23:35):
That's in your heart. That's when you were in that flow.
And so I've just recently connected the dots too to
that aspect of me being a great football player playing
in my heart. Now, let's bring that to every other
part of my life. Let's bring that to my wife
and to my kids. And when I'm sitting here talking
to you like I want to be wide open, I
(23:56):
mean that that's I'm more in my heart just listening
in your heart for sure. Yeah. Well, and and and
the thing is, though some people think that's corny or
some people think that's woo woo or whatever you want
to call it, but it's what athletes do. That's what
Michael Jordan was doing, That's what Tiger Woods is doing,
that's what that's what great tennis players, that's what Koco
Graf is doing a fifteen years old when she's out
(24:17):
on that court. Or artists or artians positions, can you
come from that place? And I've also connected the dots
that because I have four kids. It's basically just remembering
who you are and where you come from. When you're
a child, that's when you're you've learned the most. This
is all proven through science. That's when you're like a
spunge for knowledge. And I think it's because your heart
(24:38):
is wide open. As a child, you you're you, you
go through your fears a lot easier. This is why
learning to be a snowboarder or do a gymnastics you
gotta start when you're young, because you'll go through your
fears a lot. Quicker doesn't mean get afraid. You're not
afraid to dance, You're not afraid to sing at the
top of you're you're not afraid of people when you're
that young, or you go through the fear a lot quicker,
(24:59):
but there's no race, is fear or not capacity? Yes,
absolutely there there's no racism as a as a nothing
that's different. It might look weird for a second, but
then you go through it you say, hello, oh, actually
it is, and and that allows you when you're in
that frame of mind, you learn quicker. And so why
can't we as adults get to that point? And that's
(25:21):
something I've been experimenting with today. Like literally my meditations
I meditate twice a day is really about opening that heart,
getting back to what I was on that football field,
and bringing that to my television now that I do
on Sundays, bringing that to my wife, bringing that to
every situation as much as I possibly can. And first
of all, it's more fun. You can get there the
other way. You can be a logical person who's in
(25:42):
your head and hard working, uh, and you'll achieve success
if you work hard enough and you're disciplined enough. You
hear all that ship, which is good, but you're not
gonna have as much fun. It's fun being in flow.
It's it is fun. To be in your heart. That's
when that's when it's really the good stuff. It's easier
and it's more on or you can do it the
hard way and be in your head and be afraid
(26:03):
of what people think and be like I have been.
I've been afraid of what people think. That's that's what
it is. I love this. I definitely don't play husband
the way I played dad, you know what I mean.
And I could bring more of the way I played
dad to the way I play husband. And I love
my wife with all my heart. However, I sometimes I'm
just you know, I certainly am not bringing that mentality
that you're talking to to the level that I can.
(26:24):
And I love that that's something that you've dedicated yourself too. Yeah,
I want to connect it to the stuff that you're
doing a bit now today too. I mean, like one
of the things I think about and you've mentioned the
spirituality piece um and making that it sounds like that
had a big, big impact, Like you're finding your heart
and did you have like a gateway drug to that?
Like how did you get introduced to that whole sphere
of influence? I had a girl I was dating, Okay,
(26:47):
actually I ended up having a child with her. Uh Lauren, Yeah, Uh,
Nico's my oldest. Uh he's eighteen now. But you give
me a book by Deepak Chopra called The Seven Spiritual
Laws of Success. And I have a background growing up.
I grew up in a Seventh day Adventist religion where
my dad would pick us up every Saturday. Um. When
I said my parents got divorced, I still saw my
(27:08):
my biological father every Saturday pick us up and drop
us off that evening. Among other things he did some
took us on trips to He wasn't an absentee father.
He was there. But so I had that foundation. And
I've definitely moved away from the church as i got
older for different reasons and I'm gonna talk about that.
But then I got more into the spirituality aspect of things.
(27:28):
And in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success is a
great book. Wayne Dyer is. I went and saw him
speak back when I was playing. I took a couple
of teammates from my team, and I'm sure that was
mind blowing. It's mind blowing when you can combine that
with with the hard work, the discipline, the quote unquote
you know that that that case. I I don't know,
(27:51):
I want to call it caveman, but that approach that
football and sports brings, like you work your grass off
and you get disciplined and you'll get better, and no
mercy and all that stuff, But I believe the opposite
is true. When you can give mercy a little bit
to yourself and forgiveness and compassion, combine that with the
work ethic and the tenationous nous and the and the
(28:11):
integrity of sports, you'll go even further. And that helped
me become a better player. We're in the temple of
the hustle, Like the whole world around us celebrates hustle,
and like if you're making it into the pros and
any capacity and any anything, you hustle, like that's the prerequisite.
And and to take that approach, like you know, that
(28:33):
forgiveness aspect that that's something myself and my partners always
did as entrepreneurs, just keeping and we would call it
keeping the frame of an artist, right, Like an artist
you can experiment, you can try things you can you know,
and and we didn't. It took us a decade to
to to pause, Like the first ten years was all
just like okay, I'm gonna work as absolutely hard as
I can on the things that I'm doing, and then
(28:54):
you realize there's no leveraged opportunities to that. That's like
beating the game level by level. That's how most people
are playing. And if you want to, you know, get
do you ever play Super Mario Brothers and you know
that there's a whistle, you can get the whistle and
you can skip to the eighth or ninth level or whatever.
Like I, I, you know, took a time in my
career to suck at what I was doing on a
daily basis because I realized that what got me here
(29:16):
won't get me there. And it sounds like this was
one of those gates as well, where it's like combining
sort of the human aspect, the heart to the hustle.
Was was was a major, major moment. This is great.
I didn't know any of this about you. Yeah, wait,
when you keep learning and so transition is another thing
that that was another thing in my life that I
had to learn because I got done playing football seventeen
(29:38):
years career. Okay, now what's next. Now let's think about
athlete King of Kansas City and then in Atlanta. Yeah,
and but it. Then it's over. Literally, you're this and
then it's over the next day. And so a lot
of athletes struggle. Statistically are divorced, um or or broke
within two years of plane or both, and so you
(29:58):
struggle and you're gonna go through it. And I thought
I wasn't gonna go through it. I thought I was, well,
I'm in a good place spiritually. I got play of money.
I had a job at CBS on the main desk,
and it wasn't It took me three years of trying
to figure it out and bumping my head against the
wall where you know, I wasn't I wasn't happy. It
(30:19):
wasn't happy. Uh, And we shot out in New York
with CBS. And I remember I was sitting at a
um in a in a cafe in Barcelona with my
wife on vacation and my contract was coming up with
CBS and I was gonna sign for another three years there.
And like I said, I wasn't truly happy and had
nothing to do with CBS. They were fantastic with me,
(30:40):
and my wife goes, oh, yeah, the contract And if
I had never let anybody know, not even my wife,
and I don't even know if I really knew, I
just felt a certain way, but I didn't know, and
so it just hit me like a flash where I
still I got kind of sweaty but cold, and she's like,
what's wrong. You know you're gonna be happy about this
new contract, and I go, I don't think I want
(31:00):
to do this. And what hit me was what if
I peeked? You know, it's a scary, scary feeling to
think that your best days are behind you. And that's
what happens to a lot of athletes or business people
out there that or have this great successful business and
you ran it for ten twenty whatever it is, how
long it is, but all of a sudden it's not
(31:20):
giving you what you want anymore emotionally, but you're afraid
to make that transition to do something else, to jump
out and do something else. It's a scary, scary feeling,
and it's scared the ship out of me. And I,
like I said, I started crying. Um My wife's like,
HU give me. She's like, it's okay, it's gonna be good.
I even think about it now, I get emotional about
it because that feeling of fear of terror, uh and
(31:42):
then off of that I said, screw it. I don't
want to feel like this. And I told CBS thank you,
but no, thank you. I called my agent up, called
my manager up, and I said, I don't want to
do this. And remember they had been negotiating. They're like
they didn't believe me at first. Uh. And my my
agent at that point was like, you're making a career decision.
Here is this is a mistake, you know, because there's
(32:03):
no other jobs out there, I mean everything, all the
desk are full. And I said, I don't care. I
gotta I gotta go through it, you know. And uh.
And I had the luxury at this point of you know,
I've made some good money, so I could, I could
take it off. So I feel for people that feel
like they're in a position but at the same time,
life is poking you. At that point, it's saying, don't
(32:26):
fight that feeling. If you're feeling upset about something or scared.
I always do this. Here's the measure of how I
do it. Where if I want to do something but
I'm scared to do it, but I really do want
to do it, that's what I have to do. That's how,
that's how, that's my pointer for the direction, like you've
gotta go do it, you know. It's like jumping out
(32:47):
of a plane. I always wanted to jump out of
a plane parachute, and I was I was scared to
do it, but I really wanted it. I don't want
to feel that air and that feeling of lightness and
floating to the earth. But I'm scared shitless of it
because I could die right there. But I finally did it,
uh and it was the best feeling ever. Um And
it worked out for me with CBS. I got a
great job at Fox. A desk opened up miraculously where
(33:09):
one of the guys that left. I'm right where I
want to be. It's ten minutes from my house now,
I'm closer to my kids. And that's part of what
I always say, like life takes off on the other
side of fear. What you're afraid of is what you
have to go do. As long as it's in your
heart and you want to do it, that's how you
know where you need to go. Life is given you,
or the universe or divine or God or whatever you
believe in is that's that's the roadmap for you. That
(33:30):
you have to trust it though and know that it's
going to work out, and it's hard. I know it's hard.
I've been there, but it's how I live my life
now and it's more fun that way too. You clearly
don't have a lot of self judgment. It sounds like
it's something that you worked on and the broken yourself. Yeah,
and you're very open with your emotions, like you know
you're you're not only do you cry when these things
are taking place that you're telling us about, but you
(33:51):
also talk about it on things like podcasts are in
your life and like you're you're an alpha dude. Do
you think that that is attached to your physical health?
I believe that if your body is healthy and your
your mind of like flexible. What did I hear um?
Flexible body? Uh, flexible mind. And so that's something I've
been getting into lately because I was getting a little
(34:13):
stiff after I got down playing football. But yeah, I
believe if you take care of your mind, take care
of your body, your your your body will that's part
of your mind, that's part of your heart. Uh, it's
more free flow. And he goes back to kids. Kids
also are very flexible too, and so they're flexible with
their emotions, they're flexible with everything else. Uh. And I've
(34:33):
seen it where my tenth year in the NFL, I
was starting to slow down mentally, uh, physically, everything was
you know, the average careers two and a half years
or whatever, three years in the NFL, and I'm at
your tin which is great, and I'm like, okay, I'm
ahead of the curve here. Uh. And I felt myself
starting to slow down. I had a little health scare
where my blood got mixed up where they told him
I thought I had leukemia. It was one of the
(34:55):
scare talk talk about tears after that phone call where
I can get the call from the true a saying
that you know, you need to come back here, and
I'm like, wow, I'm not going. I'm going home. Actually
I was in Kansas City and he goes, now, well,
the doctor needs to talk to you. And I said,
all right, well I'm not going anywhere. And doctor calls
me up and gives me and says, hey, we's found
something in your blood if you need to come in
and take tests. And I said what is it? He says, well, uh,
first off, I said, well, it's just gonna affect my
(35:16):
football career. And he goes, don't worry about football right now, Tony,
We're talking about your life here. And when he said that,
I was like, the shiver came up with me. And
he's all, it looks like leukemia. He goes, so come in,
we're gonna run some tests and trust me, you're gonna
we'll get through this, and YadA YadA. So it turns
out was a blood mix up. But off of that,
it gave me a real kick in the ass that
(35:36):
I gotta make some changes. And I had been thinking
about making changes. And it's funny how life when you're
the intuition, the intention was there. I was reading this
book called the China Study, which is a pro vegan
book whole foods, plant based diet and the evidence to
support it, and I just said, screw it, I'm going
all in and I went vegan. I was vegan for
(35:57):
about two months. Uh felt the clarity of mind come.
I felt more regular, I felt more energy, I felt
my muscles and joints felt better, like everything was better,
felt more vibrant, open, And off of that, I made
some some huge changes. You know, I was before that.
(36:18):
I mean, I was your fast food king, you know,
and you see it by the athletes, believe it or not,
they'll come into on game day they're eating Popeye's chicken
and stuff like that. It's just it's it's horrendous. What
makes sense to me if that's what you always did
and that's how your body, you know, processes calories and
that's what you know, that's that Changing that often can
be a bigger risk than not are you still and
(36:40):
are you still vegan? And vegan it didn't last that
long and last two months, but then I made changes
off of that, like that vegan basically right, like you incorporate,
you know, and like it was it like under sixteen
ounces of meat a month or something. I'm pretty careful
with it. Rarely eat meat unless it's a special occasion
or you know, if we go somewhere and someone's like, hey,
you gotta try Port's amateur, it's amazing, I'll be like, Okay,
(37:02):
let's do it. But for the most part, I'm huge
into Green's green smoothies with broccoli and cilantro and parsley.
Every day I do this, make a huge green smoothie,
Try to use much vegetables because your body feels good.
And I still incorporate a little a little bit of
h meat into two things. But the beautiful thing about
nowadays that they have alternative meats now, you know, beyond
(37:24):
meat is amazing, tastes great, gonna beyond meat burger and
that kind of satisfies my craving when I want meat, um,
but you feel so much better. I started lasting longer
on the football field, Like I said in the fourth courter,
I wasn't getting tired anymore. And that's what prompted me
to write the book on the all pro diet back
long time ago, uh to to really try to help people.
(37:47):
And you see it now with athletes. You see Tom Brady,
you look at his routine while he stayed so healthy
is long. It's it's it's not just showing up. It's
not just genetics, folks, it's it's taking care of your mind.
And it's not just sport. I mean, like, I think
that our sperm count is down half in like fifty years,
and you know, there's a bunch of reasons. But I'm
sure as we were talking about Game Changers, Susie Cameron
(38:08):
James James Cameron's movie that you were at the premiere
of last night and there's that part in that where
they they measure the sperm count of these athletes. It's
like double if they have a vegetarian meal the night
before versus eating meat right And there's all of these
other physiological impacts, but the idea that like you opening
your heart has a mind body connection, that's that's literally
(38:30):
creating more blood flow, so you're recovering faster and potentially
like and were you were you conscious of these things
as principles as you were gaining them? Did you do
you write these things down? Or did these just become
part of who you are? Like what's your process? So
I wrote all this stuff that really the ship down
right right right This morning, I'm talking to my nine
year old and he comes into my room because my
morning preparation. I'll go into my room. I'll do a
(38:53):
quick meditation, and then I have a little journal that
I've written my rules of success according to what I think.
Whether I'll read a book or I'll get inspired by
a thought, I'll write it down if it means something
to me. And now I get to see that every
day and it becomes part of me. And so that's
what I did. When I played football. Used to write
letters to myself at the bottom of the sheet, whatever
it is to motivate myself, like, hey, their doubting you
(39:14):
this week and now that, especially as I got older
and they think you're old, they think you don't have
it anymore. You have to go out there, improve right,
play at one play at a time, Play with your heart,
play with excellence, play with pride, play with commitment, play
with your whatever it is. You just these little reminders.
What you focus on expands and this has proven. Now
this is quantum physics, and so you need to fill
your brain up with the most positive images of yourself.
(39:37):
And this is part of visualization. And it goes back
to sports. This isn't woo woo stuff. This is Michael Jordan.
What's results. It's not like, yeah, debate you like I mean,
what am I supposed to say? This is not how
it works based on what like I mean, you did it.
It's it's it's your life. It's just incredible. And and
now that you're you know, pretty transitioned at this point,
(39:57):
although you obviously you're still you know, hosting the stuff
with football, tell me, tell me more about like the
businesses that you're building. And then obviously you have the
podcast now, Well, podcast is what I've been really excited
lately because, uh, you know, around three years ago, my
wife was like, you need to do a podcast. You know,
you got all this knowledge and people people don't know
this ship about you, and well, who the hell am
(40:20):
I is? The way I looked at like, yeah, I
was part of scared, you know, scared of because once
you put it out there to people will critique it.
There You're gonna have critiques. Uh, I mean just look
at YouTube. I was watching this unbelievable inspirational father something.
He was working with gang members, saying the best lessons
he's ever learned is from gang members. And he was
(40:40):
given this heartfelt and I cried when I was watching
he was It was really one of those two And
I don't cry that easy. I hope I'm not coming
off like that. Now. You're just giving us the key moments, man,
You need the key moments. And I remember looking at
and then you look at the reviews, like, you know,
nine thousand some people liked it and then two d
and thirty six people gave it a down thumbs down,
And I'm like, was two and thirty six people? What
(41:01):
the hell are they looking at? So people I always
felt like, and I would worry about those. That's the
problem with our society right now, as we worry about
those two thirty six instead of the ten thousand people
that actually really liked it. It's like that two thirty
six has a bigger voice. And for me, that affected me.
And so I had always been like, Okay, I don't
want to do a podcast, and she was and finally
it just I just said, screw it, why not? You're right,
(41:24):
I am a Hall of Fame football player. I've I've like,
I've read literally hundreds and hundreds of books, maybe maybe
thousands of books at this point. I'm still reading right now,
read two books at a time, and they're usually on
this subject of growth and and being the best version
of yourself. And so if I can help some people
out there and they can hear my story, especially from
a big football player, uh, and I can tell you
(41:46):
my secrets, my lessons, my routines, and it's gonna help
you be the better, better version of yourself. Now we're
helping everybody. What you're doing right now is amazing. You know,
you're helping people go out there and and conquer their
dreams and feel good about it and do it the
best way. And you're giving people a little tips. And
that's what I want to do. That's what we're all
in this together too. And so I did. I do
(42:07):
the podcast now called Wide Open, which will start here
in mid September, uh, where we bring people on. We're
talking about this, we talking about leveling up. I want
to hear your story and I want people to walk away,
you know, from from what's your sleep habits, which you
know by I'm a big bio hacker. I'm looking for
ways to improve my brain, my heart, open up, meditation techniques,
also how you grew up, what's your story and read
(42:28):
between the lines, because we all have the same story.
You know, there's there's there's anger, there's envy, there's jealousy,
there's unforgiveness. Those are stories that are embedded in everybody's story.
And listen to how they got through it. I'm inspired
by that. I want people to be inspired by that
because that's what's gonna make this place a better place
for all of us. Uh. So I'm doing that, and
(42:49):
then uh, business wise, UH, I was investing beyond Meat. Congratulations.
I'm part of the app Zero, which is a fasting app,
which we're gonna be ex ending here. I wish I
could tell you some details. But my partner Mike Mazer,
who was amazing, I actually worked with him on fit Star,
which was acquired by fit Bit. Uh. And so I
(43:09):
was there from the beginning. I got to see that
grow into what it was and had a really good
exit from that. And so Zero is kind of the
next phase of what we're doing. Do you inimate and fast? Yes?
Inimate and fast? How often? Uh? Probably daily? Yeah, yeah awesome,
unless unless something comes up. But most of the time, Yeah,
it's it's what about what about yoga? Should we yoga?
Should we not? Yoga? I had never been in the yoga,
(43:31):
but I just I just got back from Peru. Yeah.
I did a little week long cleansing down there. Uh,
you know, abundance, meditation, stretching, yoga. Uh. Love to me
and just me and my wife explain, you know, trying
to get our relationship better. We've been married, we've been
together almost fifteen years. If it gets stale, so we
(43:52):
gotta we gotta rEFInd that spark. And we did. It
was amazing. Uh. And so I got off of that though.
The flexibility of body affects your flexibility of mind and soul.
That's what I learned down there. And so I've really
been getting into stretching every day, like really really not
yoga though I'm not going to the class yet. Now,
you know, I don't have a mat. I just get
(44:14):
on my my carpet and I do this twenty minute
stretching routine every day and then go into my push ups,
sit ups kind of my herschel Walker without stretching routine,
and I feel amazing. It's it's I feel like I'm
ten years younger already. And I know you have the
infrared Matt, and uh do you do the chili pad?
Is that right? I got a chili pad, I got
a biomat, got an infrared sauna, I got a full tub.
(44:35):
Now I just I gotta put it together. It came
to the house yesterday. I gotta that little inversion table,
spine out. I'm in all of that. I have a
jew of light, little red light therapy. It's it's actually
really cool that. In fact, from a buddy of mine,
um named Dan Party, Who's I think he's got a
He's definitely he's got a podcast. He's a PhD uh,
(44:56):
really smart guy and he said, get this jew because
actually they have the most evidence out of all that stuff,
the most evidence on how it helps your body, uh
and your cell growth and keeping young, all that different stuff.
I'm not really go into the science because I'm not qualified,
but I've read the research on it and uh, and
I feel good when I when I use it. So
I do all that stuff, your way of thinking and
(45:18):
your way of seeing, and it's clearly what you know
gave you the permission to become the fullest potentially yourself,
your story. It really makes me think about how you
both have the provenance and you you really value where
you come from, and you don't let that be the
enemy of progress like you seem to like to combine
both the bleeding edge and living on your edge with
(45:38):
giving yourself ultimate permission to fail. If you do, and
um man, I mean, if more of us ran at
our fears versus away from him, I think we'd live
in a much you know, happier, healthier world. And I mean,
thank you man, thank you for coming on, thank you
for doing what you're doing. Really appreciate you coming, thank you,
Thanks for having of course be great man man and
(46:00):
Tony Gonzalez is a forced nature. Um, it's pretty humbling
to spend time with this guy. We've hung out a
handful of times and have some mutual friends, and I
knew that he was the boss, but good God, So ultimately,
you know, I am just blown away. Thank you for listening,
and if you're still listening, Um, you know, I always
(46:21):
at the end of these podcasts, like you take some
notes and have some takeaways that I thought were, you know,
really valuable and indicative, and and Tony basically speaks and
platitudes and wisdom. But you know, one of the ones
that I pulled that that really stood out to me.
One was playing with your heart and really understanding what
that means. And you know, if it's not fun, it
(46:42):
doesn't count. And you know, if you can connect your
heart to what you're doing, that means that you're enthused.
It means that you love it. And that's the only
way you're going to compete at the highest level, because
if you don't, somebody that does is going to take
those hundred extra passes or they're gonna put in that
extra work, They're gonna read the extra books. Success leaves
clue is. I love that quote and it's fact, you know,
(47:03):
like it's a lot of these paths have been walked,
a lot of those you know, you know, first through
the wall gets a lot of shrapnel, you know. So ultimately,
in this life, you've got to do the things that
you're afraid of. As Tony also said, but you know,
the people that came before you, you can stand on
their shoulders. And frankly, anybody accomplishing anything great has adopted
that principle. I've never met anyone in my life that doesn't,
(47:25):
you know, take from you know, those that came before them,
UM in a way that allows them to accomplish anymore.
And what you focus on expands. It sounds like Tony's
experience in eighth grade, you know, taught him that he
could break a cycle and he could go at his
fears versus letting them dictate what he did. But I
love the principle of what you focus on expands. And
(47:46):
it's fact. It's like, you know, what we do um
becomes who we are. And and if we're not careful,
you know, our thoughts become the things that end up
manifesting in our worlds UM and in our and in
our work and in our relationship. And so if you
if you manage and maintain and monitor you know your thoughts,
that it ends up resulting in the outcome. If you
(48:07):
focus on the process, you end up getting the product.
You don't have to worry about dropping balls because your
process is tight. Thank you, Tony, Thank you guys for listening.
This is the art of the hustle. I'm Jeff Rosenthal.
I'll see you next time.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.