Heroes in Business - Ed Smith President of Avnet EMEA is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances Heroes radio show amfm.

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Ed Smith President of Avnet EMEA is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances Heroes radio show amfm. Avnet is the world's largest distributor of components and was named by Fortune Magazine as Most Admired Company. Smith was promoted to Global Senior Vice President over all of Avnet, an 81 Billion dollar company. He and David discuss the technology industry and his past experience in the electronics industry.

welcome back to alliances heroes where heroes in business align to be part of our super community and find out more about alliances visit www.alliances.com now back to our super host david kogan founder of alliances oh my god i just learned so much we just had on deborah dubry from your clear edge.com she works with a ton of athletes and can teach us so much and later on in the show we're gonna have kara golden the founder and ceo of direct source wealth make sure you go to direct source wealth.com forward slash hero to learn how to make more money and have more time but let's get right to our next hero and by way, thank you for the feedback we continue to have from when we had the interview with the founder of Edible Arrangements.

All right. He is a former two-sport professional player, Ed Smith, who could be reached at edsmithspeaks.com. Now, Ed, you've played for the NFL and MLB most of your entire life. What is the biggest lesson in life that you learned, though, from sports? Well, first, thanks for having me, David. I really appreciate the opportunity to come join you. For me, it was, you know, you live two unique experiences, you know, starting out right out of high school, two days after I graduated. I was drafted by the White Sox, started playing rookie ball two days,

like I said, after graduation, flown down to Florida. And that struggle for nine years in the minor leagues taught me so much. People thought I was walking around with a silver spoon in my mouth because I got drafted and not realizing that I was starting at the bottom of the ladder. And to do what I did for nine years, you know, giving it my full attention, finally got to a point where it was time to make a change in my life. I was right there in AAA, almost about to make the big leagues, but something was wrong at that point in time in my career and in my life.

And it was time to look in different areas and, you know, maybe find a new direction. And fortunately enough for me, you know, I had a former life as a football player in high school. It was 10 years later when I first, you know, took on that idea, ended up going over to Europe in 96 of April and winning a job within the American, World League of American Football. Came back that summer, my first NFL camp and was blessed to play six years of football. I was in a Super Bowl in 98. So, you know, the thing about sports, man, it teaches you humility. It teaches you determination, all those types of things. And I said I had a crash course in everything. I saw failure.

I saw successes. I saw, you know, struggles, things to overcome, all of that within the 15 years that I put in between the two sports. But the amount of pressure and stuff playing, especially again, you played NFL and MLB, and you've got half the stadium screaming at you, praying that you're going to miss whatever it is. And the other half praying that you're going to get it. So, I mean, how do you deal with all of that when you're up there either at the plate or, you know, they're ready to go on hut, hut, hike. It it's a mind and body training I'll be honest with you it's something that's either in you or not you know and some

people can learn it as they advance in their careers but you know for me it was something that was natural from the time I was a little boy you know I was able to almost quiet the noise around me and like you said the uh you know you're standing out there on the field 80,000 in the stadium and then for me you know playing in a Super Bowl where the entire world was watching, you know, one thing you always want to make sure is I'm not that dude that just totally, you know, messes up and blows it. But at the same time, like I said, you have to learn how to block out that noise. I never forget the NFC championship game that took us to the Super Bowl. I was on the field goal unit after their kicker had missed one. We tied it.

We were going to overtime. And I'm on the left wing of the formation for the field goal. And we're, you know, they call the timeout trying to freeze us. And I just remember, you know, we're all in there. Everybody's nervous because we know if we make this kick, we go to the Super Bowl. And I'm thinking, just don't, you know, calm. You got to find that center, that, you know, chi, whatever it is.

My responsibility as a left wing was to go down, get the guy on the inside gap, get the screamer off the end. So, you know, if anything would have happened where I held somebody or anything like that, it would have been totally disastrous. But like you said, it's finding that space, that peace, that something that I've always had within me. And not only that, is if something goes wrong, it's captured on film forever and just playing it all over, and then it ends up going viral. We've got Ed Smith here, former two-sport professional athlete with the NFL and MLB. He's an author, speaker. You can reach him at edsmithspeaks.com because you're listening to me, David Kogan,

host of the Alliance's Hero Show, the only place where entrepreneurs align. So make sure you go to Eliance's.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Now, for those of you that can't see here because you're listening on the radio, let me just tell you. In fact, Ed, you're going to tell us. You've got both forearms are filled with tattoos.

Share with our audience what those tattoos are. They represent a portion of the teams that I played for. There's a couple that didn't make the cut, but on my right arm, right forearm, like you said, I have the White Sox, Brewers, Cubs, and Indians. Those are my four baseball teams. And then on this side, you have the Redskins, Falcons, Lions, and Eagles. Those were the main teams I played for in the NFL. There was one or two others that, like I said, didn't make the cut.

But, you know, it's an illustration of my journey. It's a good thing maybe you didn't play another different sport because you don't have enough room on your forearms with everything. Well, I had to revert the chest or something, you know, to be continued on the other side or something like that I would have had to put but yeah how did you get those so good to be an athlete and again two completely different sports to be honest with you it's god-given talent and and personally I know of a lot of people that I grew up with who had somewhat similar talents. I'm not going to pretend like what I have wasn't special, but it was the early lessons that my mother and father instilled in myself

and my brother that allowed us to get the most out of our talent. You know, I know a lot of people I grew up with, like I said, very talented, got mixed up in some of the wrong things or didn't put the work and time in, and you get left behind. You know, one of the early lessons for me when I started playing minor league baseball coming out of Brownsville New Jersey of all places I get to Florida with the White Sox and immediately I realized every person that was on that field and drafted had just as much talent as myself it was going to be whether I worked as hard or harder than them to elevate my career. In fact, too, you also played against your brother.

I mean, how was that? That was incredible. That's got to be just so surreal here. You know, you're growing up with him and all that. And now you're on the field playing ball against him. My first game in the NFL, my active on the roster was with the Atlanta Falcons and he was in New Orleans. The coolest thing, I'm out there on the kickoff team and I'm on their side of the field in the formation. I hear this voice over my shoulder and I just stopped for a second and realized where I was and what I was doing was my little brother talking to me like we were at a little league game or something like that. But we were both in the NFL after the nine years that I'd put in to baseball, which made it even that much more of a family triumph. And you're also, too, an author.

In fact, your book, Easy Does It, The Journey of a Lifetime. It's your autobiography. What are one or two maybe secrets that you could share about that book? Well, it's not just a book about sports. It tells the story of my entire journey, the ups and downs, a lot of the things that I had to deal with as a young man. My father dealt with some early issues of addiction things like that you know we overcame those as a family uh the my career was a lot of people look at it and they just are amazed at what I did and you know rightfully so sometimes but I'm you know very humble in the fact that it took a lot

of things to go right I look a lot it took a lot of hard lessons to learn to get there. And I kind of display all that. I take the cover off and show everybody what it was like down to some of the hardest decisions and some of the levity as well as far as some of the good times I had as a professional athlete for 15 years. I mean, that is an incredible run. And now being able to share it with others, that's huge. And again, you could reach ed smith by going

to ed smith speaks.com and by the way too thank you to deborah debris at your clear edge.com for nominating you in fact you both work together doing something very special for the homeless share with us what that was oh champions for the homeless i i try not to miss any opportunity to go out there. I make it every Thanksgiving. I try to get out on Christmases as well. Nick Lowry is the man behind that. We go out and we try to just show our thanks to him for what he's doing.

The homeless, it's a problem. We go out and we try to bring some type of light to their day, and it helps us all by giving back. So that's my mission is to help give back. What kind of advice do you have for some parents out there whose children that they see that they're just doing everything, they want to play the game, they want to be able to go pro, they want to be on TV, they want to do all that stuff.

What kind of advice can you give for them to help maybe perhaps encourage or whatever it may be? David, it's all about fun for the kids. If you're thinking early on that my son is going to be X, Y, or Z, the next Jordan, the next LeBron, whatever it is, you're taking all the fun out of it for them. My thing is let them go out, experience the athletics, develop relationships, you know, begin to get their personalities out there, to have fun with it. Later, when they get towards high school, that's when you start grooming them for a potential future. But I don't like to see when parents put too much pressure on the kids early. Let them go out there and have fun.

As a matter of fact, I think we should bring back more backyard basketball, backyard sports or in the parks and stuff like that. Get away from all this organized stuff. Let the kids be kids like we used to be and just have fun and enjoy themselves. I mean, absolutely worthy advice, Ed. Incredible. You inspire and you lead with heart and passion and you never give up on your journey of a lifetime and the dreams of others. Ed Smith, your hero. Go to edsmithspeaks.com and David Kogan with the alliances. And when we return, we're going to have Kara Golden, the founder of Direct Source Wealth at directsourcewealth.com forward slash hero. David Kogan with the alliances.