Austin Ekeler on Making $26,000,000 | The FULL Underdog Story

I took a game jersey and I I sold it. I I put it up for $4,000 and it sold instantly. I've led the NFL in touchdowns for the past 2 years. No one scored more than me. Austin Ekeler is a football running back for the Los Angeles Chargers. And in the last 2 years, he has the record for the most touchdowns in the season. He's also known pound-for-pound as being the strongest person in the NFL. And on top of his incredible NFL accolades, Austin has an amazing story about what unrelenting perseverance and dedication can do. This is really a story of someone who should not have made it according to pretty much all statistics, but has overcome every single obstacle along his way. What is up, guys? I'm out here streaming in my yard. I just wanted to ask if you guys could please tap the like and subscribe button, please. Seriously, guys, it would mean a ton. you're streaming in your yard. That's not our sponsor. Our sponsor is StreamYard. 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Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour. I am Austin Ekeler, and I I'm today's guest, and I cannot wait to dive into it, man. Welcome. Thank you so much for having man. Means a lot. Yes, thank That was the third time we had to take that back. Very good. Yeah. Well done, man. Thank you so much for coming on. I got I got to say, I've been watching a few of your plays lately. I'm not a huge like sports person, Yeah. but I started watching like how versatile you were on the field. It is so impressive. it, man. And the nickname pound-for-pound Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's That's an old one, but yeah. Where did that come from? Um so basically my rookie year, um I was coming into the Chargers. No one really knew anything about my background and I was just this I'm still like one of the smallest guys on the team. Um I was just this little guy little running back, you know, let's see if this guy can make the team, right? I was sixth string, no expectations and then they started seeing kind of just my work ethic and kind of started seeing room and they're like, "Okay, maybe there is something to this guy that, you know, sets him apart." Um and so one of those was my strength, right? And it was just me. I just have fell in love with being in the weight room. Um and it's kind of just shown over the years where now I just kind of have like anomaly of of strength where like doing one-arm pull-ups and stuff like that, like squatting a bunch of weight. And so I have my strength coach gave me the the nickname pound-for-pound after that. And so I haven't approved of the name, but it stuck so much and I've every time I hear it No, it's not. I hate it. They call me pound-for-pound. Just like pound-for-pound strongest. He's like, "You're probably the pound-for-pound strongest guy on the team." Meaning the ratio to my body and how much I'm actually able to lift is probably greater than anyone in the league is what he was saying. Basically I I I lift with the big guys, but I run with the small guys. You know, so it's kind of how it goes for me. me inch-by-inch. Someone had to say it. That was That was good. That was really good. I'm not sure what's I'm not sure what the definition on that one. Uh We'll leave We'll leave it at that. Yeah, we'll leave it at that doing interpretation, guys. That's better that way. Better that way. Yes. Okay. All right, so wait, wait. So how tall are you just for reference? and 5/8" is what I is what I registered at, you know. I am probably the shortest. No, I'm not the shortest, but as far as like weight-wise, probably the smallest one of the smallest running backs. It's incredible because in person, I mean, you definitely have like a lot of stature when you walk in. But then you see you on the field. All these dudes are like 6'4", 6'5". You see the difference there. Right. But don't you feel like that gives you like this advantage where you could like be nimble and like get in there. Yeah. In some ways. For the most part it just hurts even more when I get hit cuz the people that are hitting me are also that big as well. Which is I mean it I'm compact, right? I can take it. It's my job not to get hit so I try to avoid those scenarios. But it's fun. No, I have a great time. I'm This is my position. My position you're able to be this size and continue to have success, right? Like you have guys like the opposite end of me is like Derrick Henry who's 6'3" 255 and he plays the same position that I do at, you know, 5'8" you know, 195. And so it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool to see the different types of bodies, right? And we make it work. That's what it comes down. For me it's it's been let's be consistent, right? We can talk about the journey of how I've been consistent and built on my role. But be consistent and be efficient, right? And you do that they're going to continue to build on your role and that's what I've been able to do for the past 6 years. I got to ask. I feel like I It's I've been thinking about it. I've been watching a lot of basketball lately. Yeah. People exaggerate their size in basketball. You know, they put their 7'1" they're actually like 6'8". You know, like Chris Paul we know you're 5'9" man. Don't avoid it. Is that common in football? Like do you see that a lot? As far as what? Like exaggerating your size? I mean look, the teams has me on the roster like 5'10" which I'm not 5'10". have you in the roster 5'10"? Yeah, they So the teams all exaggerated me. Yeah, he's 5'10" I'm like 200 lb. To be more intimidating? I don't I don't know. I don't know. what? Maybe with the shoes. Like if you wear the shoes. yes. Then I would Yeah. Yeah. But I make it work so it doesn't really matter. the helmet. The helmet and shoes what The helmet. Yeah, I'm probably 6'1" then. That's interesting. You should put that there. Interesting. You know, Graham, the last time we were around each other, you were about to go fight somebody. Oh, that's right. Michael Reed. Yeah. Yeah, you you were stepping into Yeah, yeah. How did How did it go? Good and bad. I'm glad I did it. Did not win. Okay. Way different than expected. Like, I was watching all the guys go up before me and I was thinking, "They're all putting their hands down and it's like, as long as I just remember keep my hands up and I won't get hit. It's easy." Uh, and then as soon as you get up there, everything goes out the window. It's so much different than you would expect. Your adrenaline kicks in, you kind of lose Right. Yeah. I mean, you get hit all the time. What's what's that? Like, how do you how do you get used to that? pretty brutal. Um, you don't really get used to it. That's the thing. Like, if you look at our injury rate, it's 100%. Right? If you make if you make the 53 and you're on for the entire year, there's a 100% chance you're going to be in the training room for some reason. It's that's probably actually over cuz you go multiple times um and have some type of report. And so, with us, like, that's one of the biggest things in the NFL is stay healthy, right? Who can stay the healthiest, right? Is probably going to have the best chance at the end um just cuz there's such a big drop-off as far as top talent to the to the backups, right? You lose that consistency. And so, like, for me during the year, like, I'm always I feel like playing hurt. It's just are you able to go through it, right? It's can you put enough Can you tape it up? Do you need to sit a few days off? Cuz you sprain your ankle, it's going to take weeks to heal, but you guess what? You got a game in 5 days. So, I mean, it don't matter. You got to play, you know? As long as you can move and you can continue to go, that's kind of what the what the standard is. And so, really, you just kind of try to maintenance everything. It's just maintenance, right? Prehab, right? You can try to just get your body to this as compact thing as it can possibly be so that when you're actually get out there, you know, you can sustain hits, especially in my position where you get hit the most. Now, what about head injuries? Yeah, so I mean, those have been big, especially this last year cuz we had some major ones, especially the quarterbacks with the concussions and stuff like that. And so, um you know, the NFLPA um has been doing a good job making sure that we have the the correct rules. That's going to happen, right? but it's it's more so how can we prevent it with rules as far as the game, right? We're trying that. And then also, how can we make sure that we are taking the proper steps to not let people come back too early. And so, we have all these protocols that we put in um through the PA and they've every evolving just as we continue to go and so yeah cuz we don't know right it's it's going to be a long-term thing but we're trying to mitigate as much as we can right now and now and that actually reminds me have you guys ever seen that slap like fighting thing? Yeah yeah. Oh my god that's the cuz you thought about head injuries I'm like these guys are straight up just like straight concussion every hit. It's bad technique on some of them just like hitting the guy like right it's not even Yeah sometimes you feel like they hit him with their like Yeah yeah straight up just like Yeah I've seen some of the ones where they hit the guy the guy just like is like just goes stiff falls back and is confused like where am I what just happened like these how is that I don't know how this is a thing I feel like it should not be a thing you know I feel like it was one of those things like maybe someone was doing it back in their backyard with their buddies and like some and then it went too far and it's like how is yeah yeah sorry so I don't know Is that something you worry about often though like does it ever keep you up at night or is it kind of just a byproduct yeah or is it just a byproduct of the the work that you're in? You know it's like a it's like a risk reward thing you know it's like man you're you're putting yourself through this but the platform of playing you know with the NFL and being in this environment is like is it worth it and so it's hard to tell right now cuz we're young and we're not older yet but it's like as far as right now the value that I get from this and the trajectory of what it's put my life where it was from to where it is now I would say yes it's worth it going through and going out there and and putting yourself in harm's way so to speak and it's it's been something I've done ever since I can remember I've always played football right and I've played other sports but now football for the past you know like 10 years and so I don't know you hope it never happens to you I know it definitely can I know I do get I get hit in the head every game right like every game my neck is sore right I don't always have a headache but sometimes I do but my neck oh every game right cuz we have a 8 pound helmet that we have on for 3 hours right and we're getting hit around right and so yeah it's it's brutal it's brutal Let's talk about where this work ethic came from that you mentioned earlier. You have a really interesting story from when you were a kid to how you got to where you are now. Can you walk us through that? Yeah, man. So, I'm from Colorado and my mom, she was she was a teacher. She had married my stepbrother or my half-brother's dad, so he was my stepdad. And this guy was the hardest working guy I've ever met in my life. And I despised him cuz he made me work and do all the stuff that he didn't want to do around the house, like take care of all of his animals. And then he had this fencing company during the during the summer that we'd go help build barbed wire fence. And we didn't have all the best equipment, so it's straight manual, like manual labor type stuff. And like huge jobs, like he had a, you know, really good reputation in in the fencing business, like 25 mile long jobs along the highways, along the railroads. So, he was getting big jobs. Big jobs. Big Yeah, big railroad government jobs, federal jobs. And so, we'd have like a crew of five of us that, you know, would go build these during the summer. I'd only be there for like 2 months, but during those 2 months it was just And that was kind of just like the atmosphere in my home, right? In my in my home when I was growing up. It was just really intense as far as when we work, like we get we get it done and we get it done efficiently and fast. Like we we go. Like you're running to the next thing. And so, growing up in that environment, right, really put me in a place where like things just became easy when I went to like school, when I came like when I went to like sports. Like it's because what other people thought was hard, I was like, this is not hard, you know? Like at the time I wasn't thinking like that, but it was just like this is easy. Like I can do this school work. I can go push myself on a on a basketball court. Like that's nothing. Cuz I I grinded through manual manual labor. How old were you when you were doing that? Were you getting paid doing that? Or something like that? No, there's no pay in this. How old were you So, how old were you doing that? I think they got married when we were I was 4 years old when they got married. And so, I was around then and as I started to get older, I started have more of a role in the actual right. And how did you keep motivation to go do that? Uh I just wanted to get out of there. So you just finished it up as fast as possible. Just I left the day I graduated. I was like, I got to get out of here. So I literally went through my hat in the air and my truck was packed to go up to Colorado Western Colorado to go play college football. Had a job and everything set up for me. So I was I was trying to get out of there as quick as I could. Um and just being in that environment, right? My it changed my mind where it's like it became really like just like hearty. Like my head is like really just trained to continue to work and build cuz that's all I've ever been doing. And so I was like, I want to build myself out of here. And I thought I was going to be with my education. I was never thought about the NFL. Wait a second, Jack. Your hair actually looks pretty good today. Who are you? Wait a sec. This is a prank, right? Tell me it's a prank. Calm down, Graham. I just used today's sponsor, BluMaan, the best hair products for men. Their products are broken down into pre and post stylers. A pre styler is like a base layer used before you start styling your hair. The Ascend Volume Cream is the perfect pre styler to add volume, definition, and texture to your hair. And Graham, with their new packaging, you'll get a consistent amount of cream every single time. Jack, is it true that they even have a heat protecting element that'll keep your hair healthy and protected? Of course it's true, Graham. This is BluMaan we're talking about. And just to prove it to you guys, I'm going to set Graham's hair on fire. I never agreed to that. Anyways, once you're done pre styling with Ascend, it's time to move on to their Monarch Matte Paste. Infused with shea butter, this creamy paste is incredibly lightweight and easy to use. I love that it provides a high hold and much needed texture to my hair. Plus, Graham, it smells amazing. And let me tell you, the ladies can't resist me. You know, Jack, you can also get 10% off with the code ICED by using the link in the description or going to bluemaan.com. So show off your amazing hair with BluMaan and don't forget to send in your before and after photos for a chance to be featured on their social media channels. Thank you so much, BluMaan. And now, back to the podcast. going to a small division two school. Um and so it was like, okay, let me go get my education in business. Let me go start something of my own or attach myself to someone else. And I was going to start getting into real estate. And I was going to start house hacking actually. Nice. Um that was my plan, you know, and then I I was able to you play football well enough where that became an opportunity for me, but that's where my mindset comes from is just being in an environment where it was just it wasn't hostile, but it was it was tension and it was always like pressure. It was always pushing on you, you know. How did he get you to to go do that work? Like was it There was no other choice. here for free, you got to go and do this. choice. It was it was from growing up from when I was small, especially when I was really independent, it was either that or get your ass beat, right? And so it was like an environment where it's like you get done. You just get it done, you know? Um cuz you don't want that, right? Are you grateful for that type of childhood or do you sometimes wish that you had a little bit more leniency and freedoms as a kid? Um am I grateful? Wow. Um it's made me who I am. That specific part of your childhood. Yeah, yeah. I would say I have twisted it to get the positive out of it. Like I think it has made me who I am today, which I'm very grateful for as far as me being able to really stay focused and build myself up. Is there a different way? Probably. But I think the tough love aspect got me really ready for for really the world, right? And just being being able to like I said commit myself and understand that not everyone has your best interest in mind and guess what? Like things aren't always going to work out for you and there's not always going to be a why, but you might have to do something, but you might not get get the reward that you're actually expecting. Like I was just working just to work. I didn't get anything for it. Sure I had the home, right? The home life. That was great, but it wasn't like I was getting paid or any of these benefits or anything like that. So I would say yes, I am appreciative of the tough love how it was done. Uh probably not the best way, but I did love the like the tough love. And why do you think you were able to find a silver lining in that and find the positives in that? What makes you different from someone else who's experienced a similar similar like maybe like turbulent type of thing growing up or a forced work or something like that uh and then turned out negative? Yeah, so I was able to attach that mindset. I didn't know at the time until I started talking about it more. I was really able what I was able to do was attach that type of mindset and I was put it into something that was right beneficial towards me and it had some type of structure, right? So, that was at the time it was sports and and school. My mom was a school teacher. She was hard on me in school making sure I did well. So, I was taking my mindset of just right undeniable right determination to get something done fast, efficient and I put it towards football or not football but my sports and my education, right? And so, that's how I was putting that that same energy into those and it's continued to build me up, right? And so, I had this saying where it's like don't shoot for the stars but build up your floor, right? Cuz if you build up your floor and you fall down, you're still you're still up here. You still have all these core values, your education, your network, right? And your experiences, all these different things that you can that don't take money to they just took effort to do. And so, I was putting all that effort into this and I started to build myself up. And so, now I started to have value to people. That's where I got my college, right? My opportunity to go play at college. And so, that stayed with me. It basically became who I am. And so, I have all these opportunities that are not all these but I have opportunities that continue to present themselves and I'll I'll take it and I'll just immerse myself into it, right? And not just do it but learn about it. Learn the people in it, right? Make sure I'm an expert at it, right? Really try to encompass and bring on everything that is in an opportunity and try to take advantage of it and be consistent at that, right? And I do that and guess what comes from that? Hey, you're good at this. Hey, try this or here's here's more, right? And so, that's how I've been able to continue to build up to this point now where, you know, I use the NFL which is a huge platform and then, you know, all of the status and all of the you know, the the money, all of the right the experts that you know, the people that you can get connected to it's just blossomed, you know, into what it is today. So, how did you get scouted in college? What was that process like? When did you start playing football by the way? I don't know. Seven or eight? Like you just whenever I could play flag football is when I started. But as far as scouting, so this was interesting for me because my senior year, well even my junior I had a decent junior year but my senior year I had 43 touchdowns which is a ton and ran for like 2,300 yards. So, I and I averaged like a first down a carry, which so basically I was at a small school. So what do you have to do at a small school to get recognized? Well, you better absolutely dominate. And so I that's exactly what I did. And I think it was just the nature of where I was. It was literally Eaton, Colorado. It's a one-stoplight town, right? That one of those towns that you're on the highway driving and you're like, "Hey, who would live here?" You know, that's where Austin Ekeler's from, you know, you know, so as far as the nature of that I think kind of limited my exposure and the kind of the credibility of my school and able to put out like Division I athletes, so I had no Division I's talk to me. Actually had a Division I talk to my friend who's the long snapper for the Cowboys right now. We graduated together. But they would never talk to me, and so I was like, "Okay, well, I had a couple Division II's come talk to me." And they would offer me there was a couple that offered me to come out and I was like a corner, come and play as athlete, and kind of see where I fit in because I was 5'8" 186 lb at the time, right? Not the fastest guy. I was really strong, but they what they couldn't measure was was my heart and my intensity that I brought, right? The things that the immeasurables, right? The things that continue to make me successful today. So they're just looking at me on paper and being like, "Ah, we don't like this guy, right?" And so finally Western Colorado University comes to me and is like, "Hey, we got they just won two games. They were terrible. We were still terrible when I was there, too. But they'd won two games and they were like, "Hey, we got a spot. We have we want you to play running back." And I was like, "Sign me up. I can get my business degree here. I'm going to play football here." Yeah, so that's how the my recruiting process went. And then what about during college? Yeah. How often were you playing? What was that schedule like? How did you balance it dude between like Yeah. So like school work and Like I said, I I left the day I graduated cuz I was like, "This is going to be my way out. I'm going to go get on my own." And so went up, started working out with the team, immediately realized that I was stronger than a lot of these guys already. That was just part of I was working out. I just fell in love with working out cuz it was a way for me to get away and kind of get my mind off of things. And so once I got to college, it was pretty evident like, "Oh, like I'm already stronger than a lot of these guys been here 3 four years. Um and so I was like, "Okay, maybe I can fit in." That was kind of like my realization. Like, am I going to be able to do this? I don't know. I'm from a small school. And for me, I was there really to get my education. Like cuz I knew people in the field that I wanted to go to, they'd been they'd been getting into the field, getting jobs. It was kind of like a streamline for um business and energy management. And so was really focusing everything on on school. But in Division II, you don't get full rides. So I didn't have a full ride. So how was I supposed to increase my scholarship? Well, you have to get the accolades. to get, right, all-conference. You have to get all-American. And so I'm just focusing on playing football as well as I can and going to school, all right, and getting my education. And then up at Western, it's in the Colorado it's in the mountains. So the girl-to-guy ratio, it was two guys for every girl. And so that kept me really focused, too, as far as the the outside college party life. Cuz I'm going to a party and it's like, "There's a lot of dudes here, you know?" So I was like, "Okay, this ain't for me. I'mma go work out." You know? Um so I was able to stay focused there, um whether I wanted to or not. You know, it's kind of like, "Okay." Um did a lot of fishing with my buddies out there. There's no aspect that you wanted to compete with like all the other guys there and be like, "Yeah, two two to one and like, all right, I'm going to get in there. I'm a football player. I got this." Yeah, I look, no disrespect to ladies up there, but it was just it was just not where I was at at the time. Right, at the time, right, right. Um but anyway, um so I'm going through college, right? And I'm just focusing on on these These are the main two things I'm doing, right? It's it's football and education, right? And I don't I don't know why, but I think I do know why cuz my my same energy I just it just follows me. It just follows me and I just put it into the things that I care about. I started as a true freshman, right? Was like freshman offensive player of the year, right? And then continued to, right, increase my scholarship. Continued I got accepted into the program that I went to. You had to go through this like acceptance thing. Um and so was just moving in the right path because I was putting the effort in where it was supposed to be. And it was it was really structured for me. So it was streamlined. So I I was able to kind of have a line as far as where I wanted to continue to follow and push. And I think that's important because when I got to the NFL, that line was gone. Um but we can talk about that when we get to there. So, you're playing college football, and how was your work ethic relative to the average other athlete on the team? I'm way more committed. Just way more. Oh, night and day. Was it close? When I got there, there was three seniors on the team. And I remember I'm not like a huge vocal guy. Um I wasn't at the time anyway. And um I remember getting there, there was three seniors, which means that you don't recruit three seniors, right? That means Right. are left out of the entire, you know, 50 that you recruited. Um and so, the commitment was terrible, the leadership was terrible. And I remember our first away game, um I didn't really know everybody yet. I was I was just kind of starting to get my footing. Um and I remember everyone just kind of messing around, everyone's on their phones, no one's really listening to meetings, everyone's kind of treating it like a vacation. And I remember as a freshman, like like coach asked at the end of like, "Does anyone have something to say?" And I remember I had to say something. Like I Like I said, I wasn't a very big vocal guy, but I was like, "Coach, I got something." And I remember I don't even remember what I said. I was just so nervous. I had like tears in my eyes cuz I was I cared so much, but I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what to say. And I was just talking about how like this isn't a vacation, we're here on a on a work trip. And ever since that moment, they made me a captain, right? So, like moment, wow. Yeah, the moment. Yeah, so yeah, after the first away game, yeah, I became one of the team captains. like a Braveheart moment where you gave like a speech and then you win the game. Everyone stands up. Yeah. This was like me nervous, like I don't know what I'm saying. It probably came out terrible, but they probably got the message, you know. Sure. But you felt so strongly to say like I had to. I had to say something because I cared so much because for me, this is a way for me to get to the next thing, right? This is a way for me, right? And I need the team. The team is There's more There's a lot of us in involved in this. It's not just me that can go out there and do it, right? We need all of us to be locked in because the success relies within all of us. So, when I see that everyone's messing around, I'm like, "No." And I came from an organization we didn't lose games. We lost one game a year, you know, in in my football, right? So, you know, using the playoffs unfortunately. Um but um so, I'm coming in that where a game program we won two games last year. And I'm like, "What are y'all doing?" And so, my senior year, we graduated 25 seniors, right? And so, it shows you just like our group bought in. Like, we bought into something bigger um and and committed to it. And so, even the guys up there now like like when I go back to the college guys, I'm like, even just younger guys in general, I'm like, "Look, even if you're not going to go play in the pros, you you should still commit yourself to this cuz this is practice of men you got to practice mental toughness. And this is a way for you to do it, right? This is a way for you to practice staying on on task, right? Working as a team, building something, and then you can transfer those skills to something else, whatever's next in your life." And so, that's how I saw it. And I didn't know I was going to go to the NFL. I wasn't even thinking about that at all, but I knew I could transfer that. What was your training like at that point? Like, how many days would you train? What was that looking like? And then diet, too. So, it was funny actually. Um so, I had there's like three of us in my group that I worked out with. We'd work out with the team, but then we actually got in trouble cuz we I we would go work out in the rec weight room by ourselves, and we do we just do extra cuz we're like, "Ah, we can do a little bit more." And that was just kind of we probably didn't need to do more, but we did and that just cuz that's who we were. That was me, Ty, and Travis Haney. I remember us my guys um helped me just continue to grind through college. And um so, I mean, we work out four days a week um and then usually in the morning, and then you go through school and all that stuff. You have practice in the afternoon, and then um meetings in the evening. And then after the evening meetings, right? We go go back to the gym after dinner um and then do homework and stuff like that after. And so, that was pretty much the weekly grind. So, you're getting in like three workouts in a day? So, you're getting in like three workouts in a Yeah. Training, gym. Yeah. Was that overtraining looking back? Or was that just kind of So, we were smart about it like if we're legs were done, like we'll go get some arms, we'll get some chest. Like, so we were smart about it. Um but yeah, we were definitely training a lot and got really strong. And what what about diet back then? Did it matter? Because it's like I feel like you're working out so much like you could eat whatever you wanted like that. yeah, yeah, you could eat whatever you want but Helps diet and you'll be fine. didn't have I didn't have like a table for like the athletes like you see on these bigger campuses. There's one table for the entire campus and it was it was and then I mean we're in college we don't have money so I I remember eating macaroni and I'd put tuna in the macaroni and that was like my my go-to lunch. Are you serious? Too much. You know those little those little macaroni cups you put water in there and I put like I put like a cup of tuna in there. We're talking about like the cheddar cheese ones? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh man. That honestly doesn't sound half bad. That was like my go-to. That was my It didn't smell great. Oh I can imagine. Yeah. That probably smelled rancid. Like you mix mayonnaise in there with Oh jeez. Yeah, so that was the go-to. I told Wyatt all my little brother he plays at Wyoming right now. I was like, "Hey man, your boy your big brother is eating macaroni and tuna. Look where he's Look what I'm doing, you know?" But yeah, I mean college you just make it work. Were you bigger back then like size-wise? No. No. No, I'm definitely bigger now. Um I would imagine like you would get just like huge as you eat like macaroni tuna. It was like an everyday thing. That was the go-to lunch though. And it was like they're small it was like a one little package is is tiny compared to how many calories you're burning and I mean your workouts you have a running workout, right? You have weights and then you have practice, you know? And then if you do the extra stuff that us, you know, like you're you're burning a lot of calories, you know? So Yeah. And then how did that transition from that to being in the NFL? Yeah, and then shoot, you know, it's it's kind of just kind of continued to go down the progression like right become a captain and start having success, you know, early on do well all fours all four years and it kind of goes back to the same thing I said about my my high school or it's like you're in a small school so what you got to do? We got to dominate and I dominated every single year. Had all the accolades all of that and so I had scouts for the first time come up to watch my practice my senior year and these are like aliens. I'm like who like we've never seen scouts on our campus, right? Like I'm the only guy from our school that's made it to the NFL ever. So like this is this organization actually exists? they came for you? Yeah, they came to watch me practice. It was crazy. was was talking well here's the thing. The thing is the NFL they put a ton of money and ton of effort into finding these types of people, right? And going out and vetting making sure everyone every rock is turned, right? And so people are coming up talking to me. People are asking my coach like what's wrong with him? You know, like why is he here? Like he's he's got good numbers but like is he is he not bad grades, right? Like is he got legal trouble? Like why is he division two if he's doing this cuz they're like trying to figure out why I ended up there. Like no man, like he was just overlooked and he's been here and he stuck it out with this didn't transfer or anything like that. And so sure enough that that was what it came to be and then you know, I finished my senior year and I dropped out the last semester. We played in the fall. I dropped out the last semester because I made a realization where I was like an opportunity that can put my life on a new trajectory, right? Like I can change the course of my entire lifestyle with this opportunity that I didn't know I could have and I was building towards that but I didn't realize I was building towards that. And so I wanted to make sure that there was every ounce of me that went into the taking advantage of this opportunity. And so I went and trained at this place cuz you have to do the like these things called pro days and at the pro day you get like evaluated and stuff. And so I needed to make sure that my numbers as far as my attributes, right? Were able to be comparable, you know? And so went and dropped out, committed I possibly could to that and it's probably the best decision I've made as far as committing to myself as any point. And so ended up obviously getting an opportunity with the Chargers. And so for me coming into the Chargers, I was I was six string, right? There was there was really no expectation for me. I wore number three running backs aren't allowed to wear number three at that time anyway. I found out my head coach didn't even know my name until I made the team. And so we were together for like we were like I don't know, six weeks or no, know, like 4 months. Yeah, so whatever that is, 12 weeks, um 16 weeks. And so, yeah, that was just there was no expectation for me, right? There was zero. But, it it comes back to the what I said before, the things you can't measure, right? It was I had so much heart, I had so much effort and passion that I put into it. And I remember one time like I was trying so hard, like I was I was going I called it full try hard, um all the time. And so, like when it came to the studies, like I was putting in so much extra work. I was the only rookie running back that they had at the time. So, I didn't really have anyone to bounce anything off of. And it was just so overwhelming, I remember, because I was sixth string. I never moved up the depth chart one time. I was always sixth string. And so, it wasn't like I was doing terrible, but I wasn't doing amazing. I was kind of just being consistent, right? Yeah. And I I remember I literally went into my coach, I started break I just broke down cuz I was so stressed cuz I'm like, "Bro, I'm trying so hard. I'm doing everything right. I'm putting in the work. I'm right I'm doing what I'm supposed to, but I'm not seeing any like like affirmation, like, "Hey, you're doing good." Anything like that. I don't know I don't know. So, I'm just I'm losing my mind, right? Going through training camp cuz I'm like, "I'm doing I'm doing well, but I don't know." And so, you know, I just continued to go through that. And then we have four preseason games. And after the last preseason game, uh I did pretty well and I had stayed consistent, made a few plays. I I'd been doing that throughout the entire. I had a reporter come up and ask me like, "Hey Austin, how do you feel like you did?" I was like, "I don't know how I did, but there is nothing else you could have got from me." Like that was everything that was everything in the table. Like there's nothing else I could have done. So, if if it works out, then great. If not, then, you know, I can go find something else to do. Um and then sure enough, um you know, we have cuts and if you get a call by like 1:30, you're probably getting cut. I never got a call. And then I had my player director guy be like, "Hey man, we got to get you a spot to find a find an apartment, right?" Um and so, that was the kind of my journey to make the team. So, why why did you stick with the college and not transfer out earlier? Like what made you go that almost 4 years? I wasn't to get to the NFL. It wasn't like, "Oh, I need to get to a different school to get to the NFL. I was getting my degree. I actually had an internship um and got offered a job uh with Noble Energy, an oil and gas uh company. So, that's why I was going. So, I was there for my education. Cool. Yeah. And then, what was that like your first day at the NFL? Like, how was that different from college? Yeah. Um so, in the NFL it really there's no one to hold your hand. Um and it's just throughout the entire year, not just in season. But, really in season in in the um in the college world, like, we have meetings at this time, we have workouts, we have meetings pretty You're pretty much scheduled all day, right? In the NFL, it's not like that. Like, people have families, people go back home. It's like it's almost like a 9:00 to 5:00 during the week for us, right? And then you have your whatever you do after. We don't have any school anymore, right? So, it's like what do I do now? You know, so it was a lot of video games and a lot of studying, right? And just kind of just keeping myself, I guess, trying to pick myself up. And so, really from the day-to-day after setting up your time and getting everything scheduled, there's nothing that's really different during season uh besides you get paid, right? You don't get paid in college, right? So, um that was uh the biggest difference. And I remember I left my truck at home for my little brother to have. And I Uber I would Uber to the facility for like the first like, I don't know, 4 weeks until I got my first paycheck. And then I finally went and bought a car. Um and so, that was kind of just the situation we were in. So, just out of curiosity, cuz I don't really understand the whole the whole timeline once you go from college to NFL. So, you had a one semester left and you recognized the fact that there was a chance you could go to the NFL. Correct. So, you signed up for this basically 4-week period that So, yeah, let let me take you through apply for, right? Uh no. No, anyone can try out, you know? But, if you get the recognition, it's a different story. So, let me I'll do a fast story. Um so, after college, um you go through what's this evaluation period where you have like the pro day and the combine. And basically, you just get all your attributes so you can get be compared to all the other players. And so, before you get to those, you do a bunch of training just to make sure you're good with the technique and stuff like that. So, there's probably, I don't know, 8 weeks of that type of training um because I think the I think the combine's in March, I believe. I think it just happened. Um and so, you train for the combine and then after the combine is right, the draft. And all these pro before the draft is pro days. So, you do want you do the pretty much the same thing at the combine, but you do it at your school now. And so, now you'll do more drills and stuff like that. And then is the actual draft where you actually get selected to a team. And then between the draft and actual getting to the team, there's like another month and a half. And so, there's a big off season, right? Like during this time now as a vet, like I'm just training and building my businesses, right? And so, that's what I do now. But during that, it was just train train train train train to make sure that I Try to make the next level. Make the next level. Right, exactly. Cuz I did there you don't know any better. So, you think you need to train as much as you do. You you really do just to make sure you get your reputation. When you get that, then you can start to get your routine as far as how you actually want to be a pro. Interesting. How much was the first check? The first check. I think my minimum minimum's almost doubled since I've been in the league, which is crazy. I think my minimum was like 430,000. And we would get two game checks in one check. And so, and I live in California. So, yeah. So, there's a big chunk out of that. So, I don't remember. I think checks were like 19,000. Um and you would get I forgot however many of those. Um and so, two of those, you know, combined or whatever it was, right? It'd be like 40,000. 40,000 like every every 2 weeks. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Or every Yeah, every 4 weeks actually Whatever it is. Every 4 weeks, yeah. So, whatever whatever It was like a 17 uh 17-week uh pay schedule. Yeah. All right. Or no, uh eight game eight-week pay schedule cuz it was seven 16 games and then you get paid every two games, right? So, you just get two game checks every Friday, right? Every other Friday. And it's just direct deposit? Just direct deposit. Yeah. Just big checks, right? Boom. And I'm like, "Oh, I didn't know that was real money." Like, "What the heck? Um, and even for me then, right, making 430,000 was insane, right? I just came from college. I'm not making any money. Now, people in college making 400 like cuz NIL stuff. Um, but yeah, for me at that time it was just like, okay, like now I have a real opportunity to actually get myself financially set up as well. You know. So, you're making the minimum cuz you kind of just got your foot in the door. Minimum, yeah. went all of the the training and everything. You just made it. And then, uh, and then walk us through what happens next. You get that $20,000 check, you buy a car. Yeah, finally buy a car. What do you spend it on? So, first thing was a car. I was renting, which my rent was like 2,300, which I just came from college where my rent was $400 a month. And now I'm like, this is disgusting, right, for my one-bedroom, right? You know, rent's crazy. Um, really, I mean, 2,300 isn't bad nowadays. Now I'm looking out there. It's crazy what's what's going on in that market. Um, I barely think so, too. Um, and so, right, start to get some checks coming in. Really, I'm just saving up. Like, that's what I was advised. Like, we have like these little seminars or like, "Hey, just save your money. Don't spend it on anything until you figure out kind of like what a plan is after." So, I really didn't buy anything major. The first thing I ever bought was actually after my second year. I bought my first duplex. Um, and that's kind of what kind of thing sparked off cuz I knew I wanted to get back in real estate. So, this is a way for me, too. And that's pretty much what sparked off kind of like my entrepreneurial phase again, being back in the business space, is when I started to accumulate rental properties. Um, and I actually had a connection to a house flipper um out in my area, and he'd been flipping single families, but was starting to get into multi-families. And so, he had a couple duplexes coming up that he was going to be flipping. I was like, "Hey, I'll buy them from you. Give cut me a deal, and I'll just buy them from you right right off the rip." Um, and so, that's how I actually started building up my my real estate portfolio. And so, um, and then that turned into, right, I started a foundation, right? And then that turned into, right, I started a streaming company. And then the streaming company turned into the app. And then, you know, it's just continuing to to start to just sprout out as I continue to learn, I continue to connect. Um and now during my off seasons now, it's just full of just just that, right? Connecting, learning, right? Talking about these types of things, meeting types of people that that can possibly, right, we can add value to each other. So, it's been a it's been a fun journey and, you know, I planted a seed a long time ago. That's why I talk about, you know, today when I tell these young guys like, "What you should do right out Don't spend any money. Just learn and connect with people." Like that's what all you should be doing, right? Cuz that's going to present you your next opportunity if we're talking off the field. Um I kind of went on a tangent off the field. Um but as far as back on the field, actually my rookie year, I I really just mainly played special teams. Um actually my favorite stat um to this day is that I led the NFL in tackles on punt on my rookie year. And so, I was on special teams, right? And so, not offense or defense, it's everything else in between, the kicking game. And so, for me, that was how I was making my living. And so, I treated it like it was everything. Like that was that was my starting role, that was everything for me. And so, I treated it like my life depended on it. You have to go down there and make these You got to go make these plays. And so, that was the severity of that I put it in my life. Like this is everything to continue on this trajectory, continue growing myself down this path. And that's how I continue to to add on to my role, right? I took advantage of that. I was having success, so they started putting me on offense. I started scoring touchdowns. They started giving me more offense. I started scoring more touchdowns, being more even more efficient. And then it just continued. Now I'm just fully offense and I became the starter, right? And then I you started leading categories in the NFL. And then now for the past 2 years, I've had the most touchdowns scored by anybody. Um so, it's like I just continued to build on the roles that have been given to me. Um and not only on the field, but even off the field as I can continue to grow professionally as well. What year would you say your career really took off? Was it 2 years ago? And what was that that really was the the big catalyst? Was there a moment that just like you made a touchdown and it was like, "That guy." Yeah, so actually so after my second year, my second year I still kind of split special teams. And then the following year, the guy that was starting in my position um uh cuz I was still a backup he held out um and he held out cuz he was trying to get a bigger contract. He was trying to renegotiate with the team so they weren't in agreement yet and so it gave me an opportunity where I was a second string. Well, guess what? Now you got to start for us Austin. And so I had never started before. So it was kind of a moment where I was like, "Okay, let's see if this kid can do it." And for the first three games I was lights out scoring touchdowns. I remember the first game of the season came out and we went to overtime and I like scored the game winner in overtime and you know, the place is going crazy, you know. Um and so was able to kind of show that I can carry the load as a starter. And um that was probably my biggest year. I had, you know, like 11 touchdowns. That was the most I had scored that year. Almost had 1,000 yards receiving as a as a running back, you know. I had like 450 or uh something like that rushing yards. And so that was where I really showed that, "Hey, I could be reliable on offense as well." And that's really after that year I got my big contract, my second contract where I signed I signed 4 years for 26 million. Um and that was like the moment that was like the year that really kicked off um where I am today. And then I take it when that happens now you're on everybody's radar. Yeah. Does it almost work at like a group think effect where it's like you send one deal and then all the other teams are like, "Wait a second, they just signed him. Hmm." Like Does it kind of work like that? me I was in a scenario where I was um I was trying to get extended. I wasn't um I was restricted. So I wasn't free. Um basically only I can only deal with deal with the Chargers unless they didn't want me. If they didn't want me, then I was able to go out to to the open market. does How does that work? Cuz like when you sign your first deal with them they say like, "All right, if we want you back you have to sign an exclusive option with them?" So I was an undrafted route. So undrafted you sign for 3 years and then you have a fourth year where you can basically be what we call like tendered um where they can put like a a draft pick on you and that's slotted to a certain amount of money. Um if if a team wants you they can trade you but they have to give up that draft pick that they put on you, right? So, they're like, "Hey, we're Austin's a second round draft pick and that gets slotted for, you know, I don't know, $6 million." So, someone has to give up a second round draft pick if they want me. Um, and so, we wanted to get around all that. We're like, "Hey, let's get something a little bit longer longer done, right? I've added a lot of value. I think I can go beyond that. I think I'm worth more than that." And so, that's exactly what we did and we're like, "Hey, let's not do the tender and do a 1-year, but let's do a 4-year." Um, and so, that's I'm in the fourth year of my 4-year deal right now. Got it. And of the 26, is it like, you know, 26 is the total, but then like agents take their cut and lawyers Oh, it's it's gross. It's gross. And that and then California California takes a Yeah, yeah, yeah. whittles down from that amount? Like, where and where does it go and like what how many people are on your team Yeah, so you on that? It's changed over time. It's a ton now. Um, and so, at the very beginning, right? Yeah, like you said, California takes half, right? 13's going to California, 37 or whatever it is, 33, 37's going to the feds, right? So, right off the bat, 50%, right? Half. And then my agent's taking 3%. Um, some goes to the union for dues and things like that. Um, and then so, yeah, you're left with I don't know, 45% at the end of it. It's at that time where I didn't have any like people helping me work or things like that. And so, then that's really where my entrepreneurial side started to kick up and I started to right, do the foundation. I started to do um, like my streaming company. So, I needed to start hiring people to help me. And so, my my manager right now, Madison, um, she became like the first my like right hand man, right? And so, it was like she's she helps me manage everything. And um, right? That became an expense. So, it's even it just gets chipped down, chipped down, chipped down. But, I mean, the reason to hire someone is because they're helping me make more somewhere else, right? So, endorsements also started to pick up. Um, and so, I think 2 years ago was like the first year I ever passed seven figures or yeah, seven figures in endorsement money. And so, yeah, that started to really pick up, right? And so, your name starts to get bigger in these different communities as you have more success, right? So, you need more infrastructure to help you manage it all, right? And so, and now I have, right? I have a I have a marketing team that helps me continue to get endorsements and keeps me in that. I have um a PR team that helps me to get interviews and get on podcasts and push different stories that I want to do. Uh obviously the agency as well, right? We have we have Nick, uh Madison, and right So, you start to really build out and out the team for the app, the team for the foundation. And so, my team for I have a real estate fund as well. And so, all these things start to, right? Start building up. You have to build teams around these as they continue to grow. Um and so, they've been pretty self-sufficient to this point now cuz I've been growing them for about 3 years. And um but yeah, it's it's been a ton. So, you can kind of see me really putting myself in a position to, when I'm done playing, like I have all these avenues where I can still have some type of, right? Some type of traction in as far as gaining income and things like that. Now, is that common for people to do? Like, what about for your teammates? Like, are they just like, you know what? The one thing I've been hearing a lot of stories about this of the uh initiations. All going out to dinner and like someone picks up the like, yeah, the $60,000 meal. I've watched a lot of GQ Sports and they all talk about like the $60,000 meal. It's a real thing. That's real? It's a real thing, but usually only for like the first or second rounders, right? This guy is getting a $7 million signing bonus. So, you kind of like pay your dues and especially if you're an O-lineman, it's the worst because you have 12 guys in your room, right? That are all huge human beings, right? So, if you go out to dinner, drinks, several drinks, lots of plates of food, every appetizer times three probably, and uh yeah, you're getting stuck with a $20,000 bill for sure. Did that happen to you? Or have you Oh, I was undrafted. So, my signing bonus was $5,000. Like, I was like, "Woo, I got some money, you know?" Like, that was my signing bonus. So, my my like rookie, right? Duties were I had to snack the room, right? I had to make sure the room was full of snacks all year. And so it was something more manageable within my price range at the time. Yeah. But you never partook in the other side of this. No, I never had to. No, no, no, no, no. No, yeah, I'll run up the bill for one of my other guys but so bad about doing that. I don't think I could do that. Yeah, so that's what we do now. Like with our current rookies, like we don't No, I'm not not run up the bill on them but we make them like they'll pay they'll get us dinners on Thursdays and they'll make sure all of our snacks are still there. So, yeah, it's probably it's probably a thousand 1,500 bucks at the end of the year that you spend but it's manageable, you now what about for your other teammates? Are they Is it typical that they spend just a ton of money in general or or are people smartening up a little bit now and trying to save money? for the most part most of our guy like the bankrupt and like all all these pros going like that's I feel like that was so like like old school like back in the day. Um now it I mean it would wouldn't be that hard but it would be really hard to spend our minimum now. I think the minimum is like 7, 800,000 dollars and so if you had a real problem you could get it done. Um but for the most part most of our guys, I think there's like 3% I saw a number of our guys are actually going broke now. Really? Um so it's yeah, it's dramatically different and I think that's just access to more stories, more information. We have more resources to make sure we're protecting our guys and so also now something that we've done is instead of getting paid eight times out the year, huge fat checks, now we get paid um 34 times. So we we we cut it so you get half a game check, right? So you get half a game check throughout the year, right? So you play a game, right? Over the next two weeks you'll get that full check in the next. So it pushes it out. So now your checks are significantly smaller, right? So it kind of helps you kind of budget throughout the rest of the the off season as well cuz during the off season you don't get paid. Got it. You know. How do you approach your spending at this point? Is Is there any temptation when you see such a large amount where you're like, oh man, I could afford this if I wanted to? So I bought a Corvette. That was like my my big ticket C8, the 2020. Is that a convertible Yeah, the convertible or the coupe? The convertible. I wanted to push the button. I didn't want to have to get up and you know. I I love the Z06. The Z06, yeah. So nice. I thought about trading mine in, but I didn't end up pulling the trigger. I'm just going to keep I'm going to keep the original 2020. All right. Um and so that would be like I guess my big purchase. I mean I have two houses, so that's actually some significant uh um money as well, but I I keep a roommate in California to mitigate some of that cost and then I also rent out my house to the Raiders players here in Vegas, so kind of just pay for one and a half houses, you know, throughout the year. Um How do you rent out a house here to other players? How does that work out? I just get in call in contact with their player director. Um I had a friend that played with Trent that played I screwed up with who was his long snapper for the Cowboys. He was on the Raiders and so I kind of got an in with them and then I mean we're all one phone call away. Like we all somewhat know each other. We're part of the same brotherhood, so uh there's always new guys that are coming in and so it's like hey, if you want to use the house, right? Here's rent. It's already furnished and so a lot of guys that sign one years will take it. Interesting. Yeah, I was thinking about doing that. Yeah, you you need to play you need to play. I've never heard of that, man. That's that's cool. Cuz I was like how do I justify having these two houses? Well, first of all I can't get away from taxes with football money, but I could get away with it for my for my endorsements cuz my endorsements were just paid to wherever I lived and my my um residency was in California. And so I was like, well, just moving to, right, Nevada alone, right, I saved 13% of my seven-figure, right, endorsement money. So that's just paying for the house itself just by coming over and then I was like, okay, well, still don't want to have these huge mortgages up, you know. And so I was like, okay, let me rent it out. Let me get a roommate out there. Like I'm I'm I'm not single, but I'm not living with my lady right now and so it's like it's it's no big deal. Where do you think that frugality came from? Um Graham Stephan. All right, there we go. Because you see he subscribed. That's right. Got to hit the like button and subscribe. And you too can save a lot of money. That's right. Really? I think it be came from just my simple life growing up where it wasn't I didn't have any elaborate things or have any big desires. It was really just what I needed to get by. I always wanted a Corvette and so now I kind of have like my Corvette and then other than that it's like sure I have two houses but it's more so just for the save some money there. And then everything else is really just invested right and invested in it just different businesses that I try I have a really creative mind. And so it's like a blessing and a curse where you try things and you know it's a curse cuz you're trying all these things and some of them don't work out. Yeah. Or some of them evolve and things like that and so yeah that's where a lot of my money goes. Yeah like what didn't work out? Like what were some of those businesses? It wasn't necessarily didn't work out but things were you know I get especially like during COVID there was this time where right there was there was a low everyone was home content was booming and I invested in a company which I don't want to say the name right now but um basically they were like a a streaming company for athletes right and it was like I just kind of impulse put it in 375,000 and I was like boom here like I love this it's a great idea let's do it and that was like the for year after I had just gotten paid and so when I realized like it takes you know 700,000 to make that you know 300 and something thousand and it's like that was probably too big of an investment right just me getting educated the hard way of overpaying for things investing too much. One thing that like I started a a a streaming company it's not that it failed but I realized I learned that I only have so much bandwidth you know and so I was basically having to do everything all the creative getting everyone set up all the streams all executing it all and so that just knew okay I got I got burnt out right I couldn't do it anymore and so just really took a lot of of learning. That I went through I invested in a company that was um of my teammates in college company and it was like lamps and stuff like that. And it was just I was just like, "Sure, you're my buddy. This seems like a good idea, right?" And it was just like, "Ah, that didn't really work out." Um I've got pitched the the the restaurant, you know, from a family member that wants to start a restaurant. Luckily, I didn't get into that one. Um but it was like, "Ah, like there's things that were just like early on I was getting pulled different directions." And I kind of just got burned um a few times. And so, it's like, "Okay, now that I'm I'm older, I I've been investing more in myself in the things that I want to do." I still invest here and there, but it's it's really um it's really tightened since then. to say no when you have so many opportunities. And a lot of them sound pretty good. You don't know which ones are going to hit until you say yes to them and then follow through. Right. So, and I was young. And so, I was like, "Oh, let's try this. Try this. Try this." And then you're like, "Oh, wait. Where'd my money go?" You know? Um Yeah, for startups, you basically assume it's going to be zero. Yeah. You know? You know? And if if it's not, hopefully it's, right, a 10x, right? Where it's like, "Okay." So, that's why you have the risk reward. Yeah. Um but for the most part, I put my money into real estate, like I was telling you. I continued to buy. Uh ended up buying 30 from from that Well, not from that guy, but in that area. Um some multi-family, some condos. And then actually teamed up with that same flipper, and we wanted to go bigger, and that's when we started the fund together. And, you know, bought a mass foreclosure out in Missouri. Uh and then have been basically turning that one over for the last past year and a half. And so, um it's kind of like the my portfolio That's like my baby is the real estate portfolio, yeah. So, we had Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes, ex-NBA players on this podcast. And I asked them the question of what percentage of professional athletes' success is some form of like, let's say, physiological superiority, so just like natural, inborn, you know, biological superiority versus luck versus hard work? Yeah. It's it's combination. It depends on who you're asking. Cuz if you look at me, like, sure, I'm strong, but I'm also 5'8", right? I'm not the fastest guy in the field. So, how am I getting it done? Well, a lot of the things come down to the things that we said like that can't be measured for me. Right? Just I have like an obsession with the things that I'm involved with and it like I immerse myself into them to be as efficient as possible. And it worked perfectly on the football field, right? Where it's like that's what you need to do to be a good player. You need to be consistent. You need to continue to make sure you're incrementally having some type of right growth. And I've done that forever. And so for me, I think it was more mental for me, right? Yeah, absolutely. You have to have the physical makeup to do it, right? Like I didn't have a lot of injuries. I still don't have a lot of injuries. So, whatever my body composition has worked. Um But then the mental part. So, as far as percent but I I know guys on the team that they're just huge or they're just like why do you look like that? And you cuz I know how you work out and it doesn't match. Where it's like and they can get it done and they're going to get paid $20 million a year because they have that type of right they have that type of right body type. And then when you got get the guys that put it together, those guys are obviously honestly take off. Um And so I would say it depends. It really depends. For me, it's mostly mental. Um But in general in general, I think the average career is like 3 years. And so if I think more guys had the mental to actually commit like like like I have or even even more, then I think that career length would be longer. Um But I think guys just get fizzled out because they don't have their hand held anymore. Right? When you're in college, you got to go to this, you got to go to this, you got to go to this. In the NFL during the off-season, you you can do whatever you want. So, it's left up to you and other people are working harder. You can do what you want. And guess what? Those rookies that are coming out, they're hungry. They're ready to go right now. You know? And if you're not, guess what? You're losing your job. Right? Cuz I remember me, I was doing everything I could. I dropped out of school for this, right? I got nothing. I had nothing. You got you know, you got the contract, you got all that. I got nothing. I'm coming for everything that you got. Right? And so that's the mentality I had. So, if you got guys like that, thousands of them coming out every single year and you're not on your game, you're going to get weeded out real quick. Um and so for the guys that stick, mental is huge. For the guys that don't, I feel like there's probably some mental capacity. There's physical capacity. Some guys just aren't aren't good enough or just hurt and things like that. Um but I don't know. I could say 50/50. Um yeah. What are some of the other businesses that you've done that are doing well? Doing well? out to me about one business that you wanted to Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so experience. So really what I've learned is that there's so much power in different types of communities, right? Um like I came from a small town. I got into right the the Chargers organization and I started to have all this unconditional love from all these Chargers fans. I don't even know these people. They don't know me, but I was so I was so just like thankful. Like people that were like cared about me. Like they'd hit me up or they'd follow me. Like I thought that was so cool and I was like I didn't really realize what I was giving to them, which was entertainment, but I was just like this is amazing. Like I'd just go out there and play football and people follow me and then I get endorsements and stuff like that. And so I was like there's so much power in that. And then I started meeting people that were doing cool things, right? Actors, like other influencers, right? Different experts in fields. Um and so and so I was like okay, like let me use this community and can try to continue to build it so I can continue to have more opportunities. And so that's when I started the streaming company and was helping people stream. I was streaming, bunch of opportunities and I was like okay, streaming's kind of too niche. Like it's it's like really just there's not a lot of people that stream. And so let me pivot that and let me start a platform where you can engage with your fans and basically set up a menu of what types of engagements you want to do and what you're willing to do and put your prices next to them. Um and so I wanted to create things cuz people were always asking like hey, can you sign my jersey? Hey, like can I can I donate to you? Hey, where can I talk you about fantasy, right? Fantasy football's huge. And so I was like well, I don't want to just DM all these people and stuff. So I was like let me create this. So that's what experience is. Um it's a platform where you can engage with fans. Like you can there's a way you can get your jersey signed. You can do a video chat. Like I set up all these different interactions I'm willing to do and put a price next to them. And so I've been I've done like 300 engagements. We've been launched for like 3 months now. So we're inviting other influential people on just to continue to for their fans. is it similar to Cameo or is it like Cameo plus like other stuff? is known for like their personalized videos. And so really I wanted to be more innovative in the space with kind of more unique experiences. So we do have like the personalized videos, you can do that. But like we have game with me. So there's a lot of people that game. So if you want to set up and game with somebody, right? You can set up an option to do that. If you want to get something like jersey, like how you can get your jersey signed? Well, you better go beg at the sideline or show up at a signing that I do once a year, you know? If you don't do that, you ain't getting the thing signed. So I was like let me make a virtual version so you can get your thing signed, right? So basically how it works, you pay I think mine's 99 bucks to get your Austin necklace jersey signed. You send it to experience, we verify it, send it to me with a return address back to back to them. And so that's kind of how our whole flow goes. And so we'll continue to innovate. I have some other opportunities and we'll continue to add other experiences. We have six right now. Wait, so can people can I if I go on there and say like, "Hey, if you want to grab dinner with me, X amount of money?" No in person. No. Why? You're going to be there. Liability. Cuz I don't I can't I don't know everybody, right? If if I know someone's confident enough to like do in person, that would make sense. But there's so. But you're facilitating a meeting of two people and something crazy Like if it's a super fan and something like Yeah. So and yeah. the same, man. Like the the spend a day like hanging out be huge. But Huge. Come train with me for an hour. like hey, come speak to our our fans or our students or something like that. I get that, but I didn't want to deal with the liability of in persons. Yeah. Yeah. I got a question. So if you're a YouTuber, let's say you're a There's this guy Paddy Galloway. He's like a YouTube consultant. He's he knows about the algorithm. If he wants to go on there and critique someone's YouTube video editing or something like that. Just very custom services that he can provide to his fans. Can he do literally anything? So yeah, so with that I would either say do a social media offering. We have a social media category and then you could put YouTube on there and you could say like video review. Thumbnail advice. You could do thumbnail advice, right? You could put basically I mean we could pull it up but we can create categories within our different offerings like social media so you can create categories within that. Within you know personalized video like I have workout advice, I have workout tips, things like that so you can customize things that are relevant to you and your audience. Yeah. Yeah. So what was your involvement in that? I built it. I was a creative. I was a creative for all of it and then I hired a dev team to build it all for me. So we've been developing it for the past 2 years. What was the cost to make that and then what's the back end look like? Yeah. Yeah, so This is this is where this is where we learned the hard way again over spending, right? Coming into a new field, don't have the expertise. Sometimes you touch the stove where you have a worker shortage for engineers oh man. Yes. Yes. So touching the stove you're getting burned. And so really shoot probably like 800,000. Big big big big. to 800k? Two two years development. Two years development. For an app how? How? For an app? How many people were working on that? Four. Four. Yeah, so it's a big it's a huge project. It's huge project. We have But you do get an R&D credit I believe for taxes. There's a whole bunch of stuff you could you could use on that too. And then there's I mean there's two sides to it too, right? That's just the dev side but basically we're done. Like it's it's built. Like that it's done, right? So now it's like okay now let's just put efforts, right? Our dev costs are way down now compared to what they used to be. It's really just maintenance. And so the app's built it's like a house. It's already built now we just got to get people to use the house, you know? And so that's why we're reaching out and we'll continue to to strategize on getting people on the site and then so that's where we're positioning ourselves and we'll continue like I have some other ideas. We're like right now with our game jerseys. We don't do anything with our game jerseys and it's like so I sold I I took a game jersey and I I sold it I I put it up for $4,000 and it sold instantly and I was like um um Now this is the one you wore in the This is the one I wore in a game, yeah. So can you just wear a different jersey every game? Yeah, you can you can get So you have to buy it. You have to buy it so I'm going to buy all my jerseys this year. And I sold and I was like Let me try to sell one. Can you say how much you pay for them? 375 bucks. Oh. Yeah, so it's I mean it's kind of expensive. But but still but it's in the game. It's like In the game. There's only there's only going to be 17 of these a year plus playoffs which are going to be even more premium. if it's a good game. Do you playoffs. Yeah, is it is it that you could like not like not number it but like this is the jersey in this game in particular? Yeah, you could like you could be like oh I have a Thursday night game against a division rival or something and like it's a really anticipated game so Dude, I would still like my shirts like just right now. Grab your dick. I had a guy that offered to pay for my shoes. You could. I had a guy that offered to pay for my shoes and to buy my shoes off of me. Well, we know we know about your bath water yeah and stuff. I I got a question so could you technically buy four jerseys and then just wear like a different jersey in different parts of the game? Just every quarter have a different one. this jersey. This is the famous like this is the on this play. Let me put this jersey on. Yeah, like you can go One play. I have a question outside of finance and money. How do you combat uh performance anxiety? Because even for me and I play ping pong like casually, I'll play with my friends. I went to a ping pong tournament. Okay, first tournament I ever did and I lost a lot of games I should not have lost and I ended up getting like nearly dead last in the tournament. And then after the tournament, I played the guy who won the tournament and I beat him. And now you guys are probably thinking he wasn't trying. Trust me when I say probably hopefully was. Okay. I get performance anxiety sometimes. How do you go out on the field when you have like 40,000, however many thousand people watching you live on top of however many people are watching you online and not get nervous or like fumble the ball? Well, you do fumble sometimes, but you're not trying to. Sure. Yeah, you Um but no, man. I mean for for us, especially us in the athlete world, I feel like we've been performing since we could walk, you know? Like it's like once we like I started playing soccer like 4 years old, right? And you start to do that and I've done that forever. I've always played in front of a crowd in the fall playing football, right? And so you start to you start to get out there and you start to it becomes a routine for you. Now, when it got really big cuz I went from about a couple thousand to, right, 60,000, 70,000. Um you definitely got some. Like I still get nervous before games, right? I feel those those butterflies, you know? Um but really I think the preparation and then holding yourself to the highest standard, putting the most pressure on yourself is what's helped me. Like no one can ever put any more pressure on myself than I put on myself, you know? Like I have fans that will call me X, Y, Z. I need you to do this, do that. Coach is on my ass all the time. It's like that's great. I need that push, but you're not going to push me more than I'm going to push myself, especially cuz where I came from, how I've how I've got there, and what I'm doing right now. And so that really helps me push through. You literally just it's just blinders. It becomes like I'm in a trance. Like I'm just like so focused on just what's in front of me um as far as just all the just football, right? I don't even hear the crowd when you're on the field. And so it's kind of it's kind of trippy actually cuz it's like you know they're there, but it's like I'm just locked into signals and things like that. You can't not hear them. You can't hear anything, right? But you can still communicate where I have all we prep prepare like crazy for those scenarios so we can just basically go and out there and perform under so much noise where we can't hear it yourself yourself think. I remember playing Kansas City one night um and it was the loudest stadium I've ever been in, the loudest um environment I've ever been in. And it was Philip Rivers we're a few years ago, but everything was just signals. Everything was just signals get it done and so talking and boom he's back there clapping trying to get the snap, you know, and it's pretty epic though man. Like moments like that are like man like when you look back you like man that game like things like that you never forget. I'm oh I'm really curious now when you're in the middle of a game coming up with the different strategies. How much of that evolves like on the field? Yeah. Cuz I I bet you go into it thinking all right we're going to do this and this and this but then that that could change in like a second. How do you know how to adapt and one play. What you know really What one's thinking? What's working? That's what that's what's going to that's what's going to you know guide your game plan. Cuz you have different match-ups on the field, right? They have strengths to their defense, we have strengths to our offense, right? And so can we exploit those and maybe it changes maybe okay this player is playing right really good this game. We didn't expect that or vice versa. And so really it comes down to okay what's working for us and guess what we're going to it's going to be some trial and error. You come out you have usually your first 10 plays are scripted. Like we know what we're going to run on the first 10 plays, right? No matter what we're running these plays just to see what they're in how they're reacting and how they're adjusting. And then from then on that's play ball let's adjust and go on the fly. But how do you know what the other person's going to be doing? Do you just have you just played with each other long enough that you could kind of anticipate like hey if I run over here this guy is Yeah yeah yeah for sure for sure. Like just hours and countless hours of film study and then practice, right? And it's like hey if they're in this coverage we're doing this. If they switch to this coverage we're doing this. And so it's all it's all an art, right? Defenses are trying to disguise you know are they in are they playing it this way or they playing it that way? And for the most part there's no new defenses getting created. Like the ones that work are the ones that are already implemented. And so you pretty much know the lingo and know what the structure of different defenses look like. And so then you try to basically adjust with different route concepts in between those and give yourself options. When it's like if it's cover two we're working over here, right? If it's man we're working over here, right? So you have options that's why the quarterback position is getting paid $50 million a year now cuz you have to you have to see all this and adjust on the fly, right? What's the craziest fan experience you've had? Hmm. Fazy craziest fan craziest fan experience like as far as like I'm trying to think. There's nothing that really stands out. Has someone ever tried to like rip your shirt off your back or something like that or Oh, I mean, so people are just like they like getting they're like almost in shock like when they see me sometimes cuz a lot of people may it's mainly fantasy football fans, right? That have had me on the fantasy I scored those points for them. They won the championship. Like I think it was like some number it was like it was like 12% or maybe it was like some it was I had the highest number if you had me on the team. I was the highest percentage of fantasy championships where if you had me on your team my brother has a a team when I was in school you won all of there. Yeah, yeah, and so if you had me on your team you had a very good chance to win your championship. And so when people see me cuz now they finally see me in person like they like become like overexcited and so a lot of times it's like they like want to like touch me and they're like, "Hey man." They like try to put my arm around me or they're like getting really close to me and they're like like, "Hey yo, oh like you won me all my this money and my fantasy championship." Cuz they they're passionate about this stuff, right? So they're just like overjoyed all of a sudden cuz they weren't expecting it. And it's like, "Whoa like like these other people with me are like like is this okay?" And they're like like my little brother one time was like, "Yo bro, back off like and it's like people just like are so excited." And so that's usually the one the experience that I'm like, "Okay like yeah, well I mean I'll take pictures with anybody, but it's like okay like this is getting a little too much, bro." And I might you know be a little bit more assertive in those scenarios than I usually am. Um but as far as like crazy fan experiences for the most part people are cool. Um almost too cool like that where it's like, "Yes, I know. I want to take a picture. I'm excited. You're excited about it me too." So um but yeah, that's that's the one thing and especially like there's so many different communities to tap into, right? You have the Chargers community and fantasy football. I don't know if you guys have ever played or like do sports betting and stuff like that. It's huge, right? It's massive. And so that's what's continued to make the NFL grow, right? Cuz you got people that don't even watch or don't even Chargers fans, but they got Austin on their team. So now they're watching the Chargers games, right? So that's more viewers, you know, across the entire globe, right? I did a I did a podcast for some people in Indonesia that were fans and they were in one of my charity fantasy leagues and they wanted me to come on their podcast and I was like, "Yeah, absolutely. I'll come on your podcast." But just is global, right? I do streams. I have people from Iceland that watch and tune in and stuff like that. So it's it's pretty cool. Do you or have you ever fan girl being on the same field as someone else? Ooh. So I'm going to say no just because I never watched the NFL growing up. So I didn't like look up to these guys. I never watched the NFL until about my after my junior year of college when I was like, "Oh, you might have an opportunity to watch this and play this." But it was funny. The first time I ever saw Philip Rivers, who was my quarterback at the time, back in when they were in San Diego and we just moved to LA. He had like nine nine like people out there talking to him and stuff like that and I thought he was like doing a meet and greet. And come to find out those were all of his kids. The dude has nine kids. And so I thought that was hilarious and I was it was kind of like a wake-up call like, "Oh, like these are actual grown men with real families here." I'm 21 coming into the league. This guy's 30 something, right? With nine kids. And it was just like, "Oh, okay. This is a this is a real like business with grown people that are doing things out in the real world, too." So that was pretty funny. But no no real like fan girl moments. And when you're on the field, how much of your mind is there in the game versus how much of your mind is thinking about the past, the future, or just like other random stuff that might be passing through your Wow, you have to lock in so hard that like you can't think about anything else cuz It's just blinders. Literally blinders. You have to focus on what you're doing or you will get hurt. Like I realize especially the old line, if you if they miss somebody, if they don't block somebody, he's drilling me, right? And it's like that's my literally my livelihood out there on the field. I rely on these guys being locked in. And it's the same for me. If I'm not locked in, I misstep, I go the wrong direction, I'm getting pile drived by a 300 lb dude, right? Into the ground and it's not it's not soft, right? It's on turf most of the time. So, no, your livelihood depends on you being locked in. So, at that level, you don't have time to to be, right? Second-guessing and things like that. How do you get your mind right though? Let's just say you have like a bad day, maybe you get in an argument or something like that and like your mind's not in the right place. How do you lock in like that? Ooh. Ooh. Um Man, how do I lock in? I don't know. It's one of those things where you show up and when it's game day, um there's really nothing that matter like you stay you stay at the hotel the night before to kind of get away from everything, kind of just reset. It's just all football. You're all around your guys. So, it kind of helps you get into just a mode where you're just getting ready for this game, right? It's all everything's preparing up to the game. All the meetings, all the final adjustments, right? Going over things for the fifth time of the week, right? Everything's just focused on just hyper-focusing on the game. And so, really it's hard to get distracted, I feel like if you're doing the right things. Um if you're getting distracted, then you're probably, right? Right? You're probably not doing the right things. You're probably not going to be playing very long if you're able to get distracted on game days cuz that's for us in our career in our profession, like that's the the ultimate test, right? And that's how you're going to get paid or is what you do on game day. Right? And so, if if you're not if you're not locked in, if you're not, you know, paying attention and making sure you're doing the right thing, you're probably going to lose some opportunities and guess what? Those college kids are coming. You know. How do you get get over the fear of potentially getting hurt? Like I'd be terrified of getting hurt on the field and just knowing that like all these people are chasing me. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, really it comes down to your intentions, you know? Um and especially in my position, you got to run through you got to run through somebody. Like you I'm not taking any hits. I'm I'm hitting you, you know? You're not hitting me, right? So, it's really fight energy with energy. Like in my especially in my spot where I have the ball in my hands most of the time, you're not touching me. And if you are, you're going to feel me, right? And so, that's it comes down to have the intent and running with that. And so, that you have to. Like these guys are actually trying to rip your head off. They want to hurt you. Like they want cuz you're one of their you're one of these teams' best players, they want you out of the game. All right, they're trying to take you out. And so, how do you not get taken out? Well, you try to take them out by hitting them, right? And so, that's the intensity when it comes to, you know, in the trenches. So, it's why I love it cuz it's it just fits my mindset and what I've been going through and what I've been been through, so it's been great. So, do people rarely ever pull their hits? Like if they're coming after you, you have the ball, and they're coming from an angle that could maybe be kind of dangerous for you, they will not pull their hit. It's just all in. No, yeah. Yeah, it's yeah, you take this take this dude out. 100%. Yeah, and that's what gets people hyped. If If you do that, especially in front of your sideline, your sideline erupts, going crazy. Whoa! Right, everyone's juiced, right? Cuz you just smoked this dude, you know? And so, yeah. You know, on your sideline happens you're like, "Oh!" Now, but how do you do that if the if the guy's like 300 lb, 6'4"? Like how do you go up against somebody for me it's different. I'm trying not to get tackled, right? But if it comes down to it, yeah, look look, I got leverage. I'm probably going to get lower than you. And so, we're going to see we're going to see how it plays out. And I'm pretty strong, too. So, you know, people out people underestimate me. They try to throw their body at me, throw shoulders, I'm going to bounce right off of that. I'm running through that. And so, sometimes you get got, for sure. I've been destroyed a couple times. I remember we played Denver this last year. Whole stadium heard that one. Everyone "Ooh!" Yeah! Yeah, cuz I came through I actually didn't see a guy, and my right tackle kind of like tripped going up to him. And so, I see daylight in this guy he's on the right side, he's supposed to be getting blocked. He Well, he's not, and he's coming from my blind spot and just straight right underneath my pad. Whack! And just straight to the ground. Um and you know, like I said, it's football. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you get got. Just don't get Just get them more than you get got. Now, when you wear the helmet, how much do you not see in that? Um, I mean, you can pretty much see out of your whole entire peripherals. Like it comes back far enough where you can you can see. And so, it is You don't even really notice it when it's on, you know. Just out of curiosity, who was that guy that that hit you right there? Ah, Josey Jewell. Josey Jewell, with the Denver. You can find the clip. You can find the clip. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Josey Jewell, Denver. He's been there for a minute. We've both been there We play against each other twice a year cuz we're in the same division, so Um Are you guys cool after that, or how like what happens afterwards? like I mean, we'll dab it up afterwards. Like really, the NFLPA, like our players' association, we're all like a brotherhood. Like we all need each other. Um, and so, like after the games, like the fans, right? For them, it's like, "Oh, these are our rivals. Like we hate them." But it's like for us, sure, we're trying to kill each other for 3 hours, but then after, I'm like, "Hey, how like how's your family? Like how's everything going?" Like, you know, I hope that Hope everything's well cuz we switch teams a lot, too. Right? So, you be on different teams. These might be your teammates, right? You know, we're all in this together. So, you couldn't like hold a grudge against this guy? You could. You definitely could. There's definitely personal beefs, you know? It's But it's more like individuals that don't like each other, you often does that affect the game? Like I sometimes see on hockey, like like two guys like not really, you know, get along. They get to fight. That's sick. They talk after each other. They'll be like, "I'm going to get this guy." The whole game, they kind of like Does that happen? Yeah, it'll happen. But the NFL, there's they're stingy. They're stingy. They They're really fine-happy. Sure. And so, if you want to pay a lot of fines, you know, donate a lot of money to charity unwillingly, then sure. But like for instance, like personal fouls, um, it's like a $20,000 fine, you know? So, you're you're giving up, you know, if you're especially on minimum, you're playing for free that game, you know? And what would constitute a personal fine? Like fighting or Yeah, if you're fighting, I mean, roughing the passer, they're like if you hold on to someone's face mask. Yeah. I have been fined. I was fined for lowering the helmet. Um What does that mean? You like pulling it down? No. No, no, no. No, no, no, no. So, I was running with the ball and someone was coming to tackle me and you're not allowed to lead with the top of your head. And I apparently I led with the top of my head, which I did. I did. That's why I got fined. And so I got fined $20,000 and then I went and appealed it and I think I got it dropped a quarter. Um so, I ended up paying like, I don't know, 17 15 16 somethings $16,000. go to the NFL or like to charity? go The NFL has a collection bucket that they get and they decide where it goes. And so, yeah, we don't really don't really like that as players. It's like, so you're taking our money and then using it as a write-off when we could be taking it as a write-off. But, it's a it's a fine, so it's yeah, it's so Yeah, we don't Yeah. I think it's a good idea, Joe. We should do fines like that. Yeah, you should do fines. They're doing fines. That's a We'll try to log it. They're going to start fine you. Every every minute the video doesn't post by 9:00 a.m. we get a But, we're going to take your money and we're going to donate it for you. Yeah. So, you're on your fourth year of the contract. Can you talk about like maybe what's next? Like what the process is like? actually it's it's kind of like a hot topic right now. Um kind of went viral the other day because basically I have my last um last year of my contract. Nothing's guaranteed, meaning they can cut me at any time and they're not they don't owe me anything, right? If you get you See guys getting guaranteed cuz you want security with the team that you're in. And so, I had 3 years of that and now I just lost that. And so, now is the time where you know, players will go and try to re-up and try to get more security long-term. Um and so, we did that and basically kind of just got the door shut. And like, "Hey, we'll we'll offer you this." And it was not a great deal. And then after that they're like, "It wasn't a negotiation. It was just take this or basically now we just don't want to do anything right now. Why? Why would that be your stance? ask. What their stance? Yeah, because my thought is that if you if you're a good player, they'd want you to like they wouldn't be afraid unless they're just like Yeah. hardball in the negotiations. It's just a part of it, you know. first off, running backs, we are probably the the position that offers a ton of value, but there's not there's more liability with our position cuz we get hurt. We tend to get hurt more. Not saying we all do, but right I've I think I've missed like eight or nine games in my six years. Um most of them in one year, right? Messed up my hamstring pretty bad. So, I have a pretty good track record, right? So, if you look at an individual case, like okay, injury's not really a a factor in mine. Um as far as my stats, as far as my contribution to the team, I've led the NFL in touchdowns for the past 2 years. No one's scored more than me. Um as far as scrimmage yards, um that's like excluding like quarterbacks. Um and so it's like okay, I I have the peak, right? Um Um efficiency and peak production out there. And so for me, I don't know if it's cuz I'm 27, I don't know what is going on, but I I'm like for me, I don't know why they don't see me in a long-term position. So, we when they immediately is like, "Hey, we don't want to talk in extensions anymore." then we immediately asked for a trade. Like, "Okay, let's go find someone else so we can maybe go out there and find someone that might be a longer-term partner." And so that's kind of where we're at right now. We're still doing the dance with teams, trying to see where there's value, stuff like that, see if there's a good fit. Um but you know, if I do have to play this last year with the Chargers, then I'll be a free agent after that. Um and then I do have a little bit more reign as far as going to find place to to get a long-term contract. Got it. So, their contract they offered you was for another few years, just not at the for 1 year, yeah. was only for 1 year? One. So, yeah, with no guaranteed in the second year. So, it was like Can you say what they offered? Or it's probably not a good idea. Nah, yeah, yeah, I shouldn't talk about it just just yet anyway. Um but yeah, so it just wasn't it wasn't the length that we wanted as far as what we're still what I'm still willing to be out here doing, right? So, um wasn't as uh enticing. So, that's why we, like I said, asked for a trade. And so, if you don't accept, that's then you play a year. Correct. So, after that you could renegotiate. But, then you're not tied to them. So, like the downside is that like you might not have the same leverage as So, correct. Correct. So, so basically, okay, let's play on this last year, right? I think I'm I make like 6.25. Um I would have made I would have made like five something if I didn't hit a bonus, but I've hit my bonus every single year besides year I got hurt. Um and so, 6.25 this year, not guaranteed. They're probably not going to cut me. If they do, then I'm a free agent and I can go anywhere, which would actually help my scenario. Basically, they're getting a big discount on me right now. Um they're getting a huge discount. And so, they want to leverage that, right? They made a good deal. They bet on me. They won. And so, now we played for them in three years and this fourth year I was trying to re-up and get back to my market value. Um and so, I'll play for them for this last year if nothing happens, I'm a free agent, and then I can go negotiate with other teams. Um there is a weird scenario where they actually can franchise tag me, which basically sticks me in a one-year deal um that I would have to play for them. Um but they have to pay me the average like the average of the top like five or I forgot like five or six salaries in the position. Um Now, how much of an advantage is it to stay on the same team versus transferring? Like doesn't it Isn't it easier to be with the same team cuz you know the people already? Uh it's in a well-known city. Like what value do you usually associate with that? Or does it matter? It's really it's really outside of football value, you know? Um as far as inside football, really there's there's no there's no huge benefit of staying there. There's things that you can do. Like if you're trying to break records in the franchise, things like that. Well, obviously, if you're in a different team, you can't do that. Um but as far as like I've had I've I'm on my second head coach there, right? I've on our third or third or fourth offensive coordinator. And so, people move in and out all the time. So, it's it would be like just doing the same thing, but now you're doing it on a different team. Like you're you're used to change, you're used to new learning, stuff like that. And so, it really comes like I said, it's the outside. Like just building a community community around stuff, building relationships with the ownership, stuff like that, right? And so, things like that that um I really value. Like I love being with the Chargers. I love the people out there. I love being in LA in the in the place that I'm at. And so, I would want to stay there for the rest of my career. But if if we had to go somewhere else, I'm gone instantly. Um if if that's what it comes down to. I could play with the Vegas team. I could play with the Vegas team. Yeah. Yeah, I could. I could, you know, a couple years, you never know. You never really never know. So, it's fun. It's fun, it really is. But for the most part, look, I'll have another opportunity to get out there and strap it up and, you know, continue to play at a high level. Do you think one of the reasons why you face so much apprehension throughout your career is because of your size? Mm, probably. You think so? Probably. Because it seems like even through the scouting process, through college, how you couldn't find D1 even though you killed it in the high school. Like do you you would attribute most of that just to based off of like what people they look at you and they come to some sort of conclusion. But of course, you've blown away their initial judgment with statistics and and Yeah, with proof of right proof of of action, right? Have actionable things of that you can look at and be like, "Oh, yeah, like sure, he's small, but this is this is the output we're getting from him, right?" Which is top of the line as far as if you look at the actual numbers. And so, when you're making the generalizations about you know, Austin and you see him for the first time ever have no background, don't know nothing about this kid. He's a 5'8" kid, you know, from a Division II school. It's a lot of odds going against him that he's probably going to pan out cuz most guys in my situation get cut. They don't even make the 53, right? Um like 90 90% maybe even more. Um and so for the most part like there was every they had every right to make that generalization about me. But now it's like now you can't and it and I still think people overlook which that is makes sense but people overlook the things you can't measure cuz the only things you really can talk about and the things that you can compare against other people are what you can measure. But the thing is like how have I been able to get to this point in my life at with what I'm doing with with my resources with who I am, right? This 5' 8" kid weighing 195. You know, it's like it's the things that comes down to my mindset, comes down how I'm able to apply myself, how I become obsessed and how I continue to push and make sure that I'm so so efficient, right? It's not like I'm I'm not leading the categories of of everything, right? So I'm not I'm not the the best player ever, but guess what? I'm really high in efficiency, right? Scoring touchdowns, moving forward, um taking care of the ball, right? I I get it done where you're where you wanting things to get done. Um and so that's where I've been able to to do that do that do that do that and I've getting getting more, right? They'll put more on my plate, more on my plate, more on my plate. And so that's why right now I'm kind of like confused, right? With the Chargers like why would you not want me around more, you know? Um and I get it like we're going to have to pay our our quarterback $50 million a year. Wow. So And why the huge pay discrepancy between quarterback and other people on the team? Man, um quarterbacks are what, you know, are the face of the of the league. Yeah. You know. They drive the fans, probably driving a lot of like the front man of like a band. It's like the band might be five people, but the singer Yeah. Yeah. It's the face. It's the face, you know? Um as far as their contribution, yes, they do make a bigger contribution. Is it what the pay gap is? Maybe maybe even more. I don't know cuz when you look at the fans, you look at the stands, what are the jerseys you're going to see? You're going to see the quarterbacks, right? You know, we have rules that protect the quarterback. You can barely even touch these guys now, right? And so they can play these, you know, 15 16-year careers, right? Cuz their bodies are fine, right? Things like that. And they're so rare to find that can play at a really high level. That's why they're so in such a high demand. And so, that also drives up the price, right? Because if you can find a good one, having a good one gives you a chance to win a championship. And not, which is really hard to find one, is you're not you don't have a chance. You have no chance. Is that how Tom Brady was able to have such a long career? Yeah, absolutely. Um I mean, you got to have some toughness and all that stuff that comes with that. But, um you know, and he I mean, obviously the success that he's having, you know, keeps you motivated even at a higher higher point. And so, um but yeah, he's he's the goat, right? He's been able to stay stay at the highest level for longer than anybody. So, how much of that then is just like branding and like selling tickets? As far as a good quarterback, let's say. Like, okay, you pay him 50, but like they'll bring in 200 million in like extra ticket sales. Yeah, if you move, right? Tom Brady from, right? New England over to, right? Over to Tampa Bay, and now everyone's got Brady jerseys. Now, everyone's coming to watch Tom. It's like it's not as big as like in basketball, where where people follow like LeBron, wherever he's at. We love LeBron, right? And it's it's not like that, but what quarterbacks it is, right? Quarterbacks they follow him. Like, if I go somewhere, sure, I'll have fans that want to follow, but it's not as as impactful as a quarterback bringing them to a new team, as far as right? The fan engagement. Does uh does their social media affect uh the amount that they could charge? Like, let's say, hypothetically, you had like 10 million followers between like Instagram and Tik Tok. Do you think that you'd have more leverage cuz you could show them, like, I got all these fans and all these people follow me. You don't think that would that would sell more tickets? They do not. So, here's how it could help you, though. It could help you cuz that you're probably getting more hype in the media then. So, you're probably getting hyped up maybe more than you should be. Um which I mean, I everyone sees the media and what's going on in like SportsCenter in our world, anyway. Um everyone knows what's going on in the space. But, the thing is it the teams only care about production. They care about, right? They have a salary cap. They have to pay out all this money. What's the best way to do that? They don't care about the following. They don't care about anything or any of that stuff, you know? But, us as players we do because that's how we can make more opportunities for ourselves off the field, right? And so but during the These teams don't care about that stuff, no. Do you think it's better to be underrated or overrated? Ooh, ooh, that's a great question. Um I would say underrated cuz that means you're exceeding, right, expectations. If you're overrated, then you're, you know, probably seen in a negative light of, you know, underperforming what the expectation is and, you know, you hit there's just like it's not like necessarily like cancel culture, but you kind of just fall off. I feel like if you're if you're underrated, right, you just start becoming just the trash can that everyone's like, "Oh, this person should have been doing this." So now you can't get the money you were trying to get, you can't get endorsements you were trying to get and you kind of get not necessarily blacklisted, but it's like it's like, "Okay, now people It's like who's going to touch this person? Who's going to sign this person? Which, you know, what are they going to sign them for?" When they were getting this, they think they should be getting this, but they're actually not playing at that level. Um and so it's definitely underrated. What's the average retirement year for people in the NFL? It's like 3 years. That's it? 3 years. So I would be 21, done at 24 if I was the average. Yeah. It's amazing to me. Sometimes I'll look up the players to see and they're all like 21, 22 years old. It's wild to see. Even with hockey. It was just like just how young a lot of the players are and by the time you hit 30, it's like You're old. You were old at 30. If you're 30 years old, you're old man in the locker room. Like I'm I'm 27. I'll be 28 going into this next year. I'm old man, you know, as far as, right, as far as the age gap, right? Cuz you get to the people that's like, "Oh, these guys have families and things like that." I just came out of came out of college, right? I'm not thinking of anything about a family right now. I'm just trying to write get myself established. And so the thing is when you get older guys, it kind of it kind of shocks the younger guys too cuz you get like this draft class and young class that comes in and especially the draft class like and they have these expectations that they're going to do all these things cuz they're drafted and you know, they're drafted so they're probably one of the better players, which could be true or could not be, but then you get next to a guy that's been doing it for 5 years and just the knowledge alone, right, is night and day different and it's like, "Whoa, you start to get humbled a little bit like, "Oh, wow, this guy, okay, like they actually do a lot of football here. This guy There's a reason this guy's been here 5, 6 years, you know, and I could just got here." So, you they find out real quick there's a ton of learning that they have to do just as far as all how all how it all works. How much ego comes in with that? Like that they're brand new, they're 21, 22 years old, they got to feel like they're on the top of the world, right? Oh, for sure, for sure. And especially, you know, for the first like couple weeks when it's just the rookies, there's no vets around and then like you're like the guy for the moment, right? I remember like that was me. That was me. Um, cuz I was the only running back rookie. I wasn't drafted, but I was the only running back. So, when we had did our rookie camp, right, it was just me. I was the number one guy. I was kind of like the guy cuz they had signed me, stuff like that. And then I became six-string. And so, I went from like, "Yeah!" And then it was like, "Oh, shoot. Like, wait a minute. Like, I got a lot more proving to do." And so, you get humbled real quick. And uh I wasn't like on a high like, "Oh, I'm the man." or anything like that. Like, I still had my mindset to go and grow and how to improve everything, but um it it becomes real for you real quick. Now, what what differences have you noticed physically between 21 and today? Yeah. Ooh, good question. does that slow you down or do you feel like you just improve on what you're already doing and like mentally you might have more strategy and experience and like So, I I feel like just with my experience I've become more efficient, right? Just less wasted movement. Um, am I as fast as I was my rookie year? Probably not. Um, just because we're just straight training, less mileage, right? 6 years later, you know, I've just playing the sport is is damaging to the body, but why have I gotten better every single year? Well, it's I've gotten more efficient, I've gotten smarter, right? I I make less mistakes, right? And making less mistakes is sometimes I would say a lot of times better than, right, having, you know, a young guy that, you know, has good potential and put him out there, but he's going to make more mistakes if we put him out there, right? Um that's one of the biggest things to even get on the field is making sure that you make the least amount of mistakes, right? Because coach has to be able to trust cuz we got to We're the last line of defense for the guy standing next to us, who's the quarterback, right? It's like O-line and then it's us that we're blocking for this guy if we're throwing the ball. If we're running the ball, it's just on you. You got to make sure you're doing the right things. And that's why I think I've gotten better, too, is just if being efficient, right? And so I think you can see that in society, too, where it's like you get young people that, right, are when they should be, I feel like, right, be just like more energetic, right, going out, trying new things, doing that stuff, but, right, you learn. You're learning. You're touching the stove here. Ow, ow, ow. And then, okay, let me try this, right? And then you start to get more efficient. You start to get smarter. You start to connect more. So you start to be able to get more progress done because you're doing it in a way that's efficient and actually makes progress. And so me in my career right now, I've been playing 6 years. I feel like the reason I'm able to stay at the top of my game even though I'm I'm 27, which like I said, I still have a whole I think a whole another decade. We'll take it year by year, but um it's cuz I'm efficient, right? I just I just I know what to do. I'm in the right spot at the right time. I pick up the right people, right? I make the right steps and and get it done. What does a average day look like in a home game for you? In a home game, um so like I said, we stay at the hotel the night before and that that's night and day. That's I love that because you just get away from everything. I get away from everything in my house, right? I'm not around my computer. If I'm around my computer, I'm probably working. I'm looking at emails. I'm calling people. I'm, you know, doing stuff. And so I get to really just disconnect. Um So we'll show up the night before. They have like a team meeting at 7:00 um that night before and then, you know, you're just hanging out, watching like the Sunday night football game or the the maybe I mean, never mind. There's no Sunday night football. The college games um on Saturday, watching those wrap up and then go to bed, wake up, right? Wake up and then What time you usually go to bed? What time you wake up? Probably go to bed at like 11:00. That's just what time I usually go to bed and I'll probably wake up, I don't know, 7:30. And so, go downstairs, get breakfast, and then we have to be over to the to the stadium at 11:00. And then we'll have like 2 hours of like preparation as far as like warm-up, get the body right, get the equipment right, all that stuff, pictures, right? Warm up, little vines, stuff like that, and then play at 1:00. Play at 1:00, the game ends, what happens after that? 1:00, we get done at like 4:00, 4:30. And so, we'll go in, do a little recap after the game, right? You know, depending on how the game went. We sucked, we got to get better, back to work, or, you know, hey, victory Monday, which means we get Monday off if we did well, you know. So, it's very emotional all the time depending on if you win or lose. If you win, everyone's a great. If you lose, you all suck, right? That's the mentality, like we got to get better, you know. it How does it feel to lose a game? Like, what what runs through your mind? The whole team feels it? Like, what if one person kind of lost the game? How does that I mean, yeah. ever happen where like you were like a few points away? If if that happens, then I feel like it's not as bad cuz like, okay, if one person made a mistake at the end, like we at least we had a chance. But if we just get blown out, like you just Like for us, for instance, our last game, I don't even know if you saw our last game, but we were in the playoffs, we were playing Jacksonville Jaguars. We were up 27 to 0. Wow. We were up 27 to 0 and we lost the game. What happened? I wish I could tell you. Well, we had all the momentum going into the first half. We were up 27 to 0. I think they scored like a three-pointer or they kicked a field goal at the end. So, it was like 27 to 3 coming out of halftime. And we come out and then it's just mistake here, mistake there. They took advantage, mistake here, and it just kept repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating. They got closer and closer and closer. And then um we basically lost our consistency, we lost our flow, we made way too many mistakes in the second half that we didn't make in the first half. And uh we end up losing the game. Yeah. And so, after that, just the feeling is you just you feel like there's something missing within you cuz you put so much We put so much effort into this every week and then it's not just us that depends on us winning, right? Like Especially me. When I'm holding the ball, it's not just me that depends on me holding the ball, right? It's the whole It's the whole all my teammates, it's all the coaches that have been preparing, it's our ownership, right? That runs the organization, keeps us going. It's all of our fans, all my fantasy owners, owners, right? There's so many people that rely on me doing good things with that ball. And so, when you when you don't, it just it's a hole within you that you feel like something's lost from you. And it takes you days Well, it takes me days to try to fill that in where I can actually feel like okay, I can start moving forward again. Um and so, I I take it personally, mainly for myself, but I do know that, you know, there's a lot of things riding on my shoulders for other people. Do you feel like maybe sometimes in the beginning when you have such a big lead or you get complacent? For sure. And it's like yeah. It's human nature. take it easy. Oh, we got plenty of wiggle room now. Human nature. Yeah. Human nature. in momentum in games? Yes. Yes. Um it's kind of like that complacency, right? I think that plays into that where it's like we we do everything we cannot we can to not get complacent, right? We go in halftime, 8-0, like that's that's that's the mentality. We come out 0-0. We got to go play a game, right? And um for whatever reason, I don't know if it's the subconscious level, like I can't really explain it, but there's definitely a momentum where things are going well for you and you keep going and there's a vibe and you feel it throughout the stadium, even if it's home or away. If it's away, then the stadium's quiet. If it's home, everyone's rocking energy. You feel it. It's It's right? It's It's a contagious, right? Through the coaches, through the fans, through the players. And so, there is some type of momentum where you're in a you're in a like a mojo, right? Where you're just going and it's things are clicking. And there's also the opposite, you know, where I've gotten beat, you know, 40 to 7, where it's like we couldn't get anything going. I know we're not this bad, but I don't know what's happening, but we just anything we try is not working. So, yeah, yeah, for sure. So, what happens then after the recap? That's 4:00 5:00 p.m. Yep, 4:00 5:00 p.m. Recap. What's happened? All right, let's get a break. Boom, we got 5 minutes, bunch of media come in. That's when the media comes in. Media swarm in the locker room, right? Wants to know what happened or congratulations, tell me about that catch. You know, they want to know the best and they want to know the worst. And they're going to go to the people that were involved in those plays. And so, And what's your incentive to talk to the media? You don't have to talk to the media. You have to be available, you don't have to talk to them though. And so, So, a lot of you have to be available. You have you have to per contract? Yes, per contract you have to be available to media. You do not have to talk to them though. Right? that mean though? Like they could put a mic in your face and you can't leave, right? So, For exa- example, perfect example, there's a guy he's a running back, his name is Marshawn Lynch. And his response to anyone in media cuz he didn't want to talk to him was, "I'm just here so I don't get fined." And he would just literally just repeat that over and over and over and over again. "I'm just here so I don't get fined." And he did that for years. And that was his response. And he would And so, it's funny that the media can pull you to the podium. If they're like, "Hey, we want to see" They would always pull Marshawn to the podium. To get that clip. And they would every single time. "I'm just here so I don't get fined." Yeah, it's got to be a catchphrase after a while. It like turned into a game for the media. They're like, "Let's see if we can get him." You know, cuz every once in a while you might get him to like say something, but it was rare. And so, Couldn't you just use it to promote something? Like Yeah, and then the game was awesome, but not as awesome as my new my new merch company. experience, QR codes everywhere, and you know, You should you should you should sell your shout-out on the media from your experience. That would be good. Right. Right. good. Hey Media, if you want to interview tap into experience, 10-minute interviews, 100 bucks. You could also go to icedcoffeehour.club Shout-out to club. because dot com was taken. That's why. Yeah, we needed that. You know what though? You could also get Lexar SD cards Austin. They're They're by far Lexar. They pay him for that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, that's a that's a paid promotion. yeah, I have to disclose that's a paid promotion. Ah, okay. Yes. But There it is. Oh yeah. Yeah, but I do have to say they're pretty good. They're pretty good. Yeah, that's what we use now. Yeah. So wait, what is it? It's a Lexar. Lexar SD Storage. Memory storage. Yeah. I'm not paid to say that. Alex is. I just genuinely like the product. Okay. Okay. There you go. There you go. That's a good product. Hey, you got to respect a good product. I have to I have to ask you. So you you said, you know, parties with celebrities and stuff. This is more of a fun question. Um, you know, don't feel like you're showing off here, but who who's like the biggest flex that you have in your phone? Like the the the biggest contact? Like I want to know. The biggest contact. So I did some stuff with Kevin Hart. Um, went on his Cold as Balls. And so Wow. Yeah. That was That was pretty epic, man. And so as far as contacts, that's that's my biggest contact. I mean, it's pretty big. How often do you call him? How often No, that was a one-time thing. I haven't hit him up yet. He cuz he was talking to me we were talking about my story and everything like that. And he was he has like an audio book company. He thought it would it'd be interesting to maybe talk about you know, write some something in the literature space. And so that's how we got connected just on a deeper level. And so that's the only thing we've ever talked about. No, no, never. Have you ever thought about like a good, you know, like a good morning text? Hey, good morning man. I hope you have a good day, brother. Happy birthday. Just thinking of you. No? Uh, look, I don't want to overstep, right? I want to make sure if I'm coming to him, I'm coming to him with something that's that's relevant and isn't I know he's a busy man. Yeah. I feel like there's a good middle ground though, because if you if you just go years without texting, then the random out of the blue is weird. That's like, oh, you've been thinking about this for a while." But, if it's like every few months, It was Yeah, so we did the thing a couple months ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so it's about time that you probably Yeah, so I got to hit him up. Hey, Kevin, you know, let me know if you want about a show or something and it comes up, you know, you can send him a photo of that. You reference the conversation. Yeah, I would do that for the app. Yeah. Is there anyone else besides Kevin Hart? Who else? That's pretty That's pretty cool. I mean, there's a Like I know Ludwig, do you know him? He's a YouTuber streaming. Ludwig, yeah, I love Ludwig. We did a podcast. Oh, you had him on? Yeah, that's what's up. That's what's up. So, yeah, Ludwig. Can you get in contact with with Tom? Uh Tom Brady? I'm Yeah, I mean, pretty much anyone in the NFL is like one call away. Got you. Got you. You know, like that's where I mean, Yeah. we all know each other, you know. Especially the guys the guys that have been playing, like I've been playing 6 years, and so like the guys that have been playing a while, like we all like like one call away. You get really connected. You guys know, right? You guys have a platform. You guys have built this up for yourself. Like people are interested in people that are doing things that are impactful, and so a lot of people that you have are able you're able to get a a contact with these people, you know. Or the people who watch. Now, I do want to say we got to say hi to Jeff. Oh, yeah. Who is Jeff? Jeff Bezos. Oh, what's up, Jeff? Yeah, yeah, he's a huge fan. Yeah, okay. Okay. So, get this. So, we had uh Sahil Bloom on the podcast. 8 hours later, Jeff Bezos followed him on Twitter. Can't be a coincidence, right? You know, Wait, wait, wait, wait. Was this a Was this a blue check Jeff Bezos? The one that was The The Jeff Bezos. He's only following or the actual one? The real The Jeff Bezos. He's only following 193 people, Wow. and our podcast guest was one of them after being on the podcast. Our podcast is Yeah, he is our podcast. That's what he's known as. You are now. He is our podcast. Now, some some people may say if you really watch the podcast, you'd already be following us, but you know, obviously the guest is more interesting than us. here's the thing. He could be commenting or watching under like a burner account. Like he's Yeah, probably probably. We know you're out there, Jeff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. first or like one of the comments Yeah. Hey, Jack, you look stupid today. Come on, man. Man, he's commenting Jack is so lazy. He's just listening to Graham. Jeff like hates old people? Speaking of hate speech. So, he followed uh Sahil after, you know, Sahil was on the podcast. And uh people were speculating on Twitter. By people, I mean like a couple tweets. Okay. like, you know, could be something with the ice coffee hour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I don't think it's it's not a coincidence cuz he wasn't tweeting like much before that. So, it's not like a tweet about watch the ice coffee hour, Jeff Bezos. What the only You don't. Because because we titled it like the billionaire's the billionaire formula to getting rich in 2023. Yeah, he might he might be looking at that he might be he might BE LOOKING INTO THAT. HOW DO I BECOME MORE WEALTHY? To Jeff Bezos, the billionaire formula. He could be like, how do I get rich in 2023? Maybe he's testing the demographic with that title. Yes, exactly exactly. You know. But I'm just saying No, I think what could be is like six people. If there's the point zero zero zero one percent chance that that was actually what happened, I think it's probably someone that knows Jeff. That was like, hey, this is a really insightful episode. But why would Jeff care, you know, about this guy ice bathes every morning before he does his Feel free to say no. No pressure. If we could do a Tik Tok where you let me try to tackle you one time. What do you What do you say? You know what? As a matter of fact, I'll bet that you're going to have to sign a waiver. No, we'll No, no, we'll stage it. We'll stage it. I'll go down the middle. You jump over me. I can do that. You think you could jump over him? If he's yeah, if he's if he's going to tackle me, yeah. I'm diving down and smashing into the ground, Jack. Yeah, for sure. Easy. We have the park here. I mean, someone's going to get hurt though. Can't be on this podcast. I'll jump over Graham and you jump over Alex. Wow, all right. Let's do it. Let's Talk about viral clips. that be the one time where it's like you dislocate something and What happened to Austin when he was making a Tik Tok? He was making a Tik Tok for the Ice Scopio. It went terribly wrong and he He's uh you know, he's recovering for the next year. That's That would be bad. I would feel so Yeah, bad timing. Bad timing on that one, especially. You must have insurance on like a lot of these Well, so like how does that work? For I mean, for us in the NFL, yeah. We come with a lot of injuries, so yeah, our insurance is is pretty good. But can it be insurance that covers like loss of wages if it's like you dislocate something? Does that work like that or not? You can get insurance to yes, cover loss of wages, but not necessarily for non-football injuries. All right. So this would just need to get a phone Basically, we're a giant liability during during the off season, yeah, yeah. To ourselves even, you know, cuz if you get hurt, like we had a guy We had a guy Was it last year or two years ago? Um he was I think he was one of the center or like a guard for a team and tore his Achilles. And his team they didn't pay him his $10 million salary. Oh my god. Non-football injury. Cuz he he was training. He was training for football, but just at a different facility. He wasn't If you train at the actual team's facility, then you're within the liability, then it's a football activity, but since we're outside the facility, yeah. So do you not like if your buddies are like, "Hey, let's go play some basketball." You don't have not playing basketball. There's a lot of guys that play basketball, do the stuff like that. play tennis, no pickle ball, ping pong maybe. It's not worth it, right? No, man. Look, cuz Make $6.2 million, right? Be healthy, get to that, right? Or risk, right? Going too hard, you know, it's not like I'm not doing anything. Like do it at the facility cuz it's insured there. I'm just saying if it's like in moderation and we're not going like exerting like 100% effort and all that stuff, then then yeah, I'll do it, you know, do some things. I'll go do some like some boat sports like where we're we're doing like that surfing behind the boat and stuff like that. Have you done it? Yeah, wake surfing, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like there's stuff I'm not doing anything like extreme or anything like that. These guys that play basketball though. Just me, I'm just like ah. I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, I'd be the same way. I just wouldn't want Yeah, it's not worth it, man. If the only thing I really risk is is the actual training, right? Like that's where I put the most risk, but I have to because I have to be in shape. Yeah. Yeah. The juice is not worth the squeeze, Jack. As Graham Stephan says, that's his favorite saying. That's the all time favorite. Every episode I got to say that one time. There you go. Check that box. There it is. There it is. So thank you so much for coming on. Austin, this has been incredible. Appreciate it. Great guest. Thank you. Appreciate it. Hey, anytime, boys, anytime. For sure. Thanks. I'll link to all of your info in the description, by the way. And if you want to uh Check me out on Instagram. That's also You can you can find me on the app. Also, the ice coffee hour.com is is down there as well. So join Because .com was taken. So thank you, guys. Till next time. Okay. Do you say "Because .com was taken" every time?