Digital Social Hour - Former NFL Star Talks About Transitioning From the NFL | Shawne Merriman Digital Social Hour #85

Episode Date: August 26, 2023

Shawne Merriman comes on the Digital Social hour show to talk about transitioning from the NFL. BUSINESS INQUIRIES: [e-mail] APPLY TO BE ON THE POD: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 SPONSORS: AG1: https://www.drinkAG1.com/DSH Hostage Tape: https://hostagetape.com/DSH --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to you know cause you know physical harm to you dude my first time with randy couture like randy was throwing my ass around who was the best quarterback you played against people don't think i'm hating right and i'm not but um kelly here with an awesome guest for you guys today sean merriman how's it going good man how you doing can't complain man what you've been up to too much too much no you know things are good man um obviously you know being in the fight business and stuff now and uh being in the insurance business like i you know for me man i just i gotta stay active yeah you know i like to stay active um but things have been great man post post career you know things have been great see you transitioned well because it seems like a lot

of pro athletes after they retire they seem kind of lost for a bit right yeah but no matter what even me when i retired at the end of 2013 i got straight into tv right i was in the nfl network and i was doing the broadcasting thing but you still it's it didn't feel right right it didn't feel normal um and so whenever i talk to athletes now i say look figure out what you want to do while you're playing and then do it as soon as you're done right because that that first year is a struggle for anybody because the locker room is gone the camaraderie the the regimen your schedule yeah you know being able to compete and watch film and like all these things are gone you've been doing since most of us were like 10 or 11 years old. And so you're going to go through that transition no matter what.

So when you got into broadcasting, you were like, man, I wish I was on the field. Dude, you know, you know, what was the hardest thing for me to be in a broadcasting booth was saying something negative about the players. Right. Like if a guy was in a certain coverage and you knew that he blew his coverage. Yeah. Right. Like if a guy was in a certain coverage and you knew that he blew his coverage. Yeah. Right. You didn't want to call him out, you know, in the locker room. And you're like, hey, you know, we don't we don't do that. Yeah. But, you know, I had to get comfortable with, you know, especially people, guys that I knew. Yeah. Right. So am I supposed to be in cover three and they blew it? You're like, hey, you got to call it out because that's what the audience and the people watching want to hear yeah for sure and you mentioned when you retired you were some people

thought you retired pretty early was that like a decision you wanted to make yeah man for me um you know i had when i started having the back-to-back injuries and i couldn't stay healthy and then i finally got healthy but even when you're healthy you've already had those injuries before so you can never get back to where you were mentally right no physically oh physically so mentally i was fine okay but the the physical aspect of it is that my body could continue to do what i wanted wanted it to do right perform at a high level and even my last year with the buffalo bills they asked me to come back another year because i finished a year strong and they were like hey man we want you back we want to sign you to another deal and I knew in the back of my head I'm like I'm done you know I'm just done um I was already I was already ready to do that next thing right I was ready and but in in the

other in the other side of it when I talk to players I tell them I say dude play until your legs fall off right like play until they literally force you out of there because it really is man it's like a it's it's an honor to get a chance to play on that level yeah and it's a dream come true and you don't want to walk away with any regrets right leave it all right you got to leave it all out there because when you're done that's it there's no going back there's no and i was ready to be done mentally you were checked out i was i was checked out man i was just i had you know tv lined up i had stuff with lights out um you know at one point i was training training the fight as well i was working with the uh wwe yeah i was over the wwe network and i hosted um the wwe uh the wrestle wrestlemania yeah when it was in new orleans oh that's dope and so you know i grew up

like everybody else like a wwe fan a fan yeah i was just i loved i loved it and so to get a chance and opportunity to work with them for that period of time you know i was i was i had a lot of other things going on but you know i tell guys man if you don't have things lined up you know get lined up when you're playing but also play as long as you possibly can that you don't compromise your body and you know your well-being but play as long as you can for sure were there any injuries you sustained that you still feel to this day um no not really oh okay that's good yeah i still um you know because i'm in an uh in a the mma business in the fight business uh I still train with a lot of guys. I still, I'm at Dragon's Lair a couple,

like four or five days a week. I'm at Extreme Gouto, like three days a week. So my body, because I take care of my body, you know, I feel great. But I don't feel great enough to go out there and produce on the field the way I did. Like, once you, like, once you have the injuries and stuff like that, your body just started to go like, and you can't sustain.

I couldn't sustain the entire training camp. My body wouldn't hold up through the entire training camp. It would just shut down? It would just shut down. I would have a hip, a back, a knee, a shoulder. My body would break down over that course of a month in training camp. I couldn't do that. I saw you say on a podcast that the Raiders have the worst fan base now i'm a

giants fan so do you really think they're worse than the eagles yeah because the eagles are known to be you know oh listen um you know anytime you got a jail anytime you got a jail at your at your stadium i would say this's about the Eagles. They are tough to be there when they're playing their rivalries. I think the reason why I say the Raiders because the Chargers fans and Raiders fans, they hated each other so much. So I seem the worst of the worst, right? Especially me coming there. I talk a lot of shit.

I'm going back and forth with fans on social media. I'm that person, right? I'm the villain walking in there. Yeah. And I think with the Eagles, it wasn't a rivalry there. But the Eagles are definitely close second. Okay. For sure. I'll take that.

And rookie year, what was your mindset? Were you intimidated? Were you excited? Like where were you at? You know, to be honest, man, when I came in, because first of all, you come in, it's a locker room with four potential Hall of Famers, right? Right. You know, LT, the Hall of Fame, Gates, Antonio Gates, Phillip Rivers, Lorenzo Neal. I mean, you're walking in with these Hall of Fame caliber guys, probably like five different guys that could potentially be in the Hall of Fame.

Yeah. And so, and I was 20 years old when I got drafted. At the time, I think I was the youngest, if not one of the youngest drafted ever to the NFL. But I was already like living beyond my years because everybody else I was around was older than me. And so I didn't come in the locker room with like this rookie, you know, this rookie attitude.

You were used to it. Yeah, I was used to it. In fact, by like the fourth or fifth game of the year, I was breaking the team down. What do you mean? Like, you know, the end of the game, the huddle right before you go out. You know, you get in the middle, you hype everybody up. Oh, you were doing that? Yeah, my rookie year.

That's like unheard of. Yeah, you know, because it was like one of those roles that was like fitting for me, right? I always looked at you got your team captain, you got, you know, like your spiritual guys, and, you know, you got all these guys. They go to the fire starter, him, right? Like he's going to get everybody going. And that's the kind of role that i took in playing like that was it nice you had a leadership role like very early on yeah you were the guy early on yeah and um

from there what was it like throughout the years like well i think the the biggest thing is um and i just i just got off fox sports and they asked me about this. We're talking about teams that never won a Super Bowl, right? And they asked me when I was on the radio. And because we didn't win a Super Bowl in 2006, we had the most – in my opinion, the most dominant team of the decade. Really? Yeah, when we went 14-2. And I'm not trying to be biased.

I mean, you can – I think there's a good amount of people to say, hey, this team, this 06 Chargers team was probably the best team to ever not win a Super Bowl. Wow. That's crazy. What caused you guys to lose that year? Well, I mean, Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady. So we had to go through all those guys to get there.

But, you know, more importantly, man, I think that we just didn't realize the moment. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. A lot of us was young. And when you're young and you're that good in your head, you automatically think you can do this anytime you want. Yeah.

All right, fine. We'll get back to next year. Next year. We'll get back to next year. And so it became the playoffs in 06 um then when it came the afc championship game in 07 another championship you know back to back so in your head you're like we're good we can do this every year we're getting one at some point and i don't think that we just capitalize on you know those type of teams that we had at that time and there's

so many unpredictables like injuries coaching changes firings yeah no it was it was definitely a lot of that um we were we were hit with the injury bug we walked in that 07 2007 uh championship game against the patriots and every one of us was was hurt really oh yeah you know i had a knee antonio gates had a foot. Actually, Phillip Rivers was playing on a partially torn ACL that he had surgically scoped just to play in the game. LT

had a knee. His MCL was sprained. So we kind of walked in that game banged up, man. It was just bad timing. God. Who do you remember as some people that were just really tough to stop? You know, that Patriots team, like, during that course of, like, between 2006 to 2010. Yeah. Like, they were just, I don't think they were better than us on paper.

Like, they wouldn't, they weren't a better team for sure. But they knew how to win right they didn't make any mistakes um bill belichick you know coached the hell out of that team so you know we kept running up to into them yeah we they put us out the playoffs in 06 we lost afc afc championship game in 2007 uh then in 2008 we turned around i think we had um well 080 now we had the steelers like so we just kept running running into really really good teams yeah at the time with great quarterbacks yeah the patriots one always fascinated me because they're not more athletic than the teams they beat but they somehow just win you know what i mean like their receivers are never as as bouncy or whatever right

but they just find a way to win and that was them that was them uh through the course of their time in general they're very well coached and they just didn't make mistakes man that's you know you look back on those teams now and i hate like the you know the woulda coulda things yeah or somebody asked me like do i regret anything like no i just i just wish we would have beat the patriot you know like a lot of teams wish that so you're not yeah um and then afterwards when did you start getting into the fight business so um i started to train um jay glazer from over at fox sports he introduced me to randy cure. And so I started training with Randy first, my first day in the MMA gym working with him. And so I was like, you know, I like this.

I just had a passion for this sport and then learning the discipline of it. I got really good with my hands. You know, being outside linebacker and pass rusher, I got really, really good with my hands. And so I started to do it every offseason. And then I got better, I got better, I got really, really good with my hands. Yeah. And so I started to do it every offseason. And then I got better, I got better, I got better. And then at one point I was going to take a fight in 2015 or 16.

Yeah. Somewhere around there because I was seriously training by then. Oh, nice. And, you know, I had a couple offers, but the money just wasn't there for me. Because I had all this other stuff going on like i'm over here you know i got a great tv contract you know i'm over here doing stuff with the wwe and i had you know stuff with lights out going on and i'm like if i'm gonna throw down if i'm gonna fight like i'm it's gonna have to be worth it right because yeah i'll tell anybody this like

you can play basketball you can play football but you can't play fighting like it's just one of those things where you you all the way in or you don't do it right you know and so when i hear people like oh i'm gonna go try to fight or go try to do this like no no you either fight or you don't fight because that guy just across from you he he's not playing around this is not a game to him he's coming here to you know cause you know physical harm to you yeah your life's on the line man yep it's not a joke no no not at all and we've seen some tragedies man with some athletes He's coming here to cause physical harm to you. Yeah. Your life's on the line, man. Yep. It's not a joke. No, no, not at all. And we've seen some tragedies, man, with some athletes who are trying to transition to this sport and be knocked out.

And I tell guys all the time, I say, look, because we're athletic, right, we've got an athletic background, we've competed on the highest level. I said, when you get here, man, you have to switch your mentality when you're training a fight because your strength and all that stuff plays very little part in you actually being good. These guys have technique. They've been doing it for a long time. Their skill set is much higher than yours. You might be more athletic than them or stronger or faster,

but ultimately, they're going to have the advantage. You go and do my first time with Randy Couture. Randy was throwing my ass them are stronger or faster but ultimately they're going to have the advantage so you go in and and you know dude my first time with randy couture like randy was throwing my ass around like you know just just tossed me around and i couldn't figure out how or why and it just clicked over time as i got better i was like he was just on a whole different he had experience a lot of experience yeah yeah so with uh with the lights out league what's what's your plan there what do you see that going so we uh we got a big fight in san

diego august 26 coming up at uh casino palma in san diego um tickets will be up by monday at lights out xf.com and we're on fubo tv okay uh fubo sports so um you know what's cool about that is when you have a TV partner, right, it changes the ballgame because what do these fighters do? Same thing with me when I was a former player. I used to love Sunday night and Monday night football games, Thursday night. Like, I wanted to be on TV. You want a prime time.

You want to be seen. That's what you want to do as an athlete. And so you have an opportunity to be seen on a platform like we have. Actually, our last fight, man, we broke into like the top ten, top five or top top top five most watched on football sport. You serious? Yeah. Wow. And so, you know, for us, that was that was cool because for me, I listen to the fans. Right. The fans will tell you if you got something great or they'll tell you that you suck and um i think for me ultimately um they just like the product and these next up-and-coming guys like we we have it lights out we have the next up-and-coming superstars of the sport like and i when we put together these fight cards and i started to get around them through the weigh-ins

and yeah they some a lot of them i know but some of them i don't and start to get around them through the weigh-ins. A lot of them I know, but some of them I don't. And you can get around them right away because I've been around so many great athletes before in my life, and I'm like, you know, he's going to be a star or she's going to be a star one day because they stick out from everybody else, right? The way they prepare, the way they go about their work, the way they go about their business um it's never any bullshit with them like no excuses like they're there for they're there to fight yeah and handle business and i can tell that so for me the the funnest part about that is being able to grow these guys who one day eventually going to be superstars in this sport yeah that's huge have you been approached approached by Bellator or UFC or anyone yet?

I know all the guys. Scott Colgate, Bellator. I worked with them for a short period of time. Don Davis, Peter, all these guys at PFL. I know them. When I go to the UFC fights, I just was at the one at T-Mobile. Yeah, I was there. Yeah, so that was huge. Crazy. And normally when i go to him like sometime i'll go up then i'll sit with dana

san diego we sat together um and so i i mean i've always i've been around the sport for 17 years yeah you know i was like one of the few that when before mma started become mainstream at all you know i was at the fights you, when it was like no weight class. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Back when it was like, you know, guys were fighting in gi and shoes. And you know what I mean? Like I saw the sumo wrestler one. Yeah. You know? And so I was, I was going to those fights back then before it became mainstream.

So to see where the sport is now. And the crazy thing is this, like with us we have so many like tech verticals coming you know ai we have gloves now you can measure speed power accuracy that i'm going to you know introduce here probably the next couple months that's sick and just give fans live data more engagement because for us we're not trying to be the ufc we don't care uh we're not trying to be like UFC. We don't care. We're not trying to be like PFL, Bellator, anyone. And we feel like we have carved out a lane to be like an incubator for these other companies that's just trying to come up and do test trials in the tech space.

Yeah. And Metaverse, VR, XR. I mean, we're in the next like three to six months. We're going to look completely different as a company. Wow. Because of all these new things that we're adding. Man, you're on top of the trends, man. I love it. Well, you got, three to six months, we're going to look completely different as a company. Wow. Because of all these new things that we're adding. Man, you're on top of the trends, man. I love it.

Well, you got to, man. And look, the fights are going to be the fights, right? Like, you're, in my opinion, maybe one day somebody dethrone UFC. I don't think they ever will. But I'm sure that there will be enough that's going to try it. We're not trying to do that right we we love this space that we're in and to be able to to be able to move move around maneuver and pivot to these like creative ideas and do different things like this i love that space yeah of it

that's huge a lot of pro athletes go broke you've seen them manage to just dominate even after retirement. What would you say separated you from everyone else? I think I'm very – when I lock into something, that's it, right? And I don't get easily distracted by anything. I'm going to wake up at 5, 36 o'clock in the morning. I'm in the gym six days a week. And I'm just very um organized and smart with my time and very efficient i think that's what you know what makes me different than a lot of people in this space is that you know i have a lot of opportunities to do a lot of stuff

and you know people bring these ideas and all this great stuff which is cool and i'm like no man we got i have these three things right here. I have to do it. And so I'm not even looking or talking to anyone else or even hearing other people's stuff until I get these three things done. Wow. And I think that's what separates me. And I've always been like that even as a player. I'm not doing this, I'm not doing that until these two or three things are done.

And so it allows me to execute everything that i'm doing i i'm if i got something going it's getting executed it's getting done and then i move on to the next thing so you're just locked in i'm always locked in yeah you know seven days a week man i'm just i'm constantly locked in um you'll never get an out of the office reply on my email you know that don't even exist uh or or time that i'm saying, hey, I'm doing this, I'm not working today, or I'm not working at this moment. I mean, you know, the only time I try to block out where I don't like people to really interrupt me is when I'm in the gym.

But even then, man, I'll still send out a quick text or a quick email, or, you know, I'll answer the phone while I'm in the middle of the bench press, you know what I mean? But, you know, no matter what, that's a minute phone call i'm off and i'm back to it so yeah you're right i'm just i'm constantly locked into everything that i do that's sick and with football would would you say you were naturally talented at first or was it a lot of work ethic it was both it was both but um you know for, especially when you get up to the NFL, but when you start young, your mentality is the most important thing.

Athleticism and all that stuff. Because I know a lot of guys who weren't worth a **** athletically at all. Really? Right? But their mentality was scrappy. These guys would do anything. They would jump over a pile. They would hit you out of bed.

Like, they were just scrappy. And a lot of those guys survived a lot longer than the people who were talented. Wow. Because their mentality and their approach, how they looked at everything was just completely different. Yeah. And so I had that mentality, but I also had the athletic side to me where it's like, okay, my mentality was these scrappy guys over here

that would just do anything, right? They'll fight you all the way to the death. But I had the athleticism to back up my mentality. And that's what kind of separated me from a lot of other people when we played because you get up to the level, dude. I mean, I was talking to somebody the other day in a barbershop, and these guys were discussing, like, oh, such and such is a bum, right? They were talking about the second-string quarterback,

I forgot for which team. And I stopped them. I said, dude, listen, that second-string quarterback or that second-string linebacker, that second-string defense lineman is the most athletic guy you'll ever meet in your life. Probably the strongest guy, probably the, you know, whatever. And when you get on that level everybody's so good but what starts to separate guys is their mentality and their

approach to the game yeah it's so funny hearing just normal people saying oh that player's trash when they're when they're even worse right yeah no that's that's crazy like it's interesting to dive into the mindset of pro athletes and see because there's some that just elevate past like the regular athletes yeah i mean and um you know like certain certain people are first of all you got to have discipline right discipline is the is the key factor in everything yeah you know you have to have that first the second part of that is you have to be willing to sacrifice and do certain things that people won't do right um you know when you're tired as hell in that fourth quarter it's hot as hell outside and you put your face mask and you help it up in the air because you're trying to grasp the air ain't nothing there you can't breathe but you're able to go out and then make that one more play right

make that one big play and suck it up and go out and do it um and that's that is what separate the average guy or average athlete to the ones that are the your pro bowlers and your all pros and your defensive rookie is a year off deep offensive rookie this year players of the year like those guys when you get to that level are able to take their mind much further than the average human being or the average player that's on the field yeah who is the best quarterback you played against people don't think i'm hating right and i'm not but um i think peyton manning was the best quarterback over brady over brady wow personally you know like if i'm if i'm starting a team i'm picking peyton manning over tom brady in a heartbeat really yeah because um

in my opinion i think that when it came to a football player the best quarterback take the team aspects take the take the rings take all that stuff out if you got this guy or that guy i'm going with with peyton manning um i think that that he was capable of a lot more. I think that his way of the game, his nickname was the General. Peyton would come out and scan the whole field and call his own plays. And he was different when it came to that. He was built different. What made Tom the way he is is his competitiveness.

I play with Phillip. what made Tom the way he is is his competitiveness. You know, I play with Phillip. Phillip's the most competitive person I ever played with. Phillip Rivers? Yeah. Phillip Rivers. He's the most competitive person I played with. Tom Brady's the most competitive person I played against. And his will to compete and

his approach and how we his preparation and his willingness to compete is what made Tom Brady who he is. But when you're talking about quarterbacks and skill set, Peyton Manning. Wow. Yeah, that's a rare answer for sure, I feel like. Now, there's a lot of trash talk in the NBA, but what about the NFL?

Are people talking? Oh, nonstop. Really? Yeah, I mean, I wasn't a big talker like that. You know, I talk with my helmet, my shoulder pads. Those two did a lot of talking. Oh, yeah. But, yeah, you just hear, like, the most ridiculous, disrespectful shit, man.

Like, they don't go as crazy as they are now because they got cameras and microphones and stuff. People are mic'd up now, right? People are mic'd up all the time. But, man, I mean, before it got that crazy, you would hear the craziest shit. Really? Guys talking about families and their wives and their kids. All kind of shit. I never knew that.

Yeah, it was pretty wild. It was pretty wild. But I think that when they started to introduce like all the tech stuff and the microphones and cameras yeah it people toned it down a little bit what would you do if someone talked to you depending on what position they play i mean can i get to him you know because there's a lot that can happen legally between a whistle right and so i i um you know first of all guys nobody really said a whole lot to me because i didn't talk back anyway um but the the other part of that is if if they ever did do it it's like okay cool i'll see you

around you know i'm gonna see you at some point yeah and you know we'll i'll let that situation happen in but you know i never like looked at it do anything dirty to another guy yeah i just um i was never like that i think that there's more than enough time between the whistle to do something to people if you want sure were there dirty players because i know nba there's some oh yeah yeah there's there's dirty yeah on every team like they're out to hurt you right yeah they're on every team but you know that going into the game right right like when you watch film during the week and you're watching the whole season or a previous season my guys and you you'll see somebody standing by the uh standing by the pow right before the right right when the play is over and then the offensive

defense lineman or linebacker somebody come and take them right over the pow the play is clearly over yeah i've seen guys do that right and so we're sitting around in the meeting room like defensive, defensive lineman or linebacker, somebody come and take them right over the pile. The play is clearly over. Yeah, I've seen guys do that. Right? And so we're sitting around in the meeting room like, okay, 76. Y'all watch out for 76. Watch out for 64. And so you know that going into the game which one of the guys is dirty.

Yeah. So you know. Yeah. I feel like people know in the NBA too for the most part. So do you have like scouting reports before the games where you know yeah i feel like people know in the nba too for the most part so do you have like scouting reports before the games where you know each player oh i would you know watch probably four at least four hours of film a day a day yeah holy even in the regular season yeah yeah at least four hours wow you know you come in um you'll watch maybe an hour hour or so

um you know with the team and then you'll come back in and you'll watch in, you'll watch maybe an hour or so with the team, and then you'll come back in and you'll watch practice and you'll watch, you know, the team again. And then when I go home, I'll watch another hour or two. So all in all, you're getting at least, you know, four hours or close to a film a day. Wow. And that probably helped a lot with just planning out your strategy, right?

No, that was everything. Because once you start knowing so much about a player, somebody else, it's a game then at that point. Right. You know, when you know how many times this guy is going to kick out before he tries to block you or what his stance is before the players and if they're throwing the ball or running it, the game and then they're looking around, is third and seven.

The ball is on this hash yard on the right side. They're only going to run three plays out of this formation, and now that guy's standing up high. So you're looking at this is everything that's going on in one play, and this is one play, not a series. One play, you're looking at down and distance, okay, third and seven. They're in this formation. Okay, they've run these three plays out of this formation now i'm looking at my guy and looking

at his stance is he is he wide is his stance close is he is his hand in the ground okay so what now out of these three plays which one do they run which one do they run out of this formation this down and distance and by the way his hand is hand is in the, in the wow. You knew all that. Oh yeah. You knew that you knew that pre snap. So now you got one or two plays they could possibly run. And so you knowing that you're going full steam ahead. Wow. You're going full steam ahead. So that's when, when you see quarterbacks get sacked instantly,

that's usually because they know what's going to happen. Yeah. You, you know, you know, and some of the, some, and I had to, by the way, I had to learn how to watch's going to happen yeah you you know you know and some of the some and i had to by the way i had to learn how to watch film because i didn't you know i was at first i would just kind of watch myself and and how i played or whatnot and when i learned how to watch film i started watching everything play clock down and distance what quarter was it how's that how's that guy stands what formation and And all these what we call pre-snap keys, you start knowing which one or two plays are going to run out of this situation.

Wow, that's insane. I didn't know that much went into it. That's crazy. I want to touch up on the life insurance stuff before we wrap up. Guys like Patrick Bet-David, Sean Mike have sold their companies for a lot of money. What made you want to get into the life insurance space?

Well, Sean Mike was one of the ones who, you know, I've worked with Family First Life. Oh, nice. And so Sean and Mike, you know, I got introduced to him by a good friend of mine, Brad Alkison. And he introduced me to Sean. And we had a very similar, like, thought process in business and in life. And, you know, he's a pit bull, man. He likes to get after it. So, he's a pit bull, man. He likes to get after it, so I love that part of it too.

But more importantly, man, I started to see like an upside in this insurance industry that I didn't know was there. And obviously because I play ball, I have a big outreach, I started to build a massive agency and started helping all these other people making six-figure incomes. And so, and it just happened by, that wasn't my plan. It was just like, I realized the upside in the business and I started to bring in the people

I knew who wanted to make some extra money and take care of some families and build a business. And so, once I realized it worked for like the first 10 or 15 people, and I brought in another 10 or 15 people, I brought in another 10 or 15 people, and brought in another 10 or 15 people and I just naturally organically start growing agency. And we're hiring, I have over 200 agents throughout the country.

06.15 S1 18.15 Wow, that's insane. 06.15 S1 18.15 And at this rate, I wouldn't put a pass if I had a few thousand over the next year or two, because we have a system and a formula that is helping people change their lives. That's insane. I like life insurance because you're providing a valuable product to someone too. Yeah, and that's the thing, man.

Obviously, the money is great. There's a lot of money in it. But there's not too many industries where you're helping somebody. Right. Because life insurance is a necessity. It's not like a privilege. It's not like, hey, I might get some life insurance. I might not. Right. If you got kids, you have a spouse, you got a family, you got to have life insurance.

Yeah. You know, you got to you got to find a way to afford it and and figure it out. But, you know, just this business alone, man, it became really fun for me because the other day I was actually before when I just pulled up, I was on the phone with an agent that I work with. And, you know, he he left his job. He was working at working at Verizon for some time. Never, never made anything or more than like five thousand a month. He was struggling behind on a bunch of stuff and going on. Now he's like looking for homes. Wow.

Look, he's looking at plots of land. That's crazy. Yeah. And this is this is within a year that's nuts and so I think that you know when there's this much upside into a business you got to look at it and so yes more anybody out there that's listening you you want to work with me in life insurance with lights out agency comm or DME on Instagram or something like that and reach out man a little love to work with you, man. Anything you want to close off with?

Yeah, again, we got a big fight coming up in San Diego August 26th at Casino Palma. Actually, what's cool about it is this is my first event back in San Diego since I retired. Oh, nice. And so I was trying to get something down there for a long time. That's home for me, right? I mean, it's still my backyard. So, yeah, Casino Palma is going to be lit August 26th. It'll be live on Fubo, live on Fubo Sports.

And we got three guys in this car that's already in the process of signing contender deals with the UFC. And so that part is really cool for me because these guys are going to be bonafide superstars. I know. But to have them come and fight for us

for Lights Out Extreme fighting, it's really dope. That's awesome, man. Yeah, definitely check it out. August 26th. Otherwise, see you guys next time.

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