Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Shawne Merriman - Former All-Pro NFL Linebacker and Co-Founder of Lights Out Xtreme Fighting

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of The Radcast! This week Ryan interviews former NFL linebacker Shawne Merriman! Shawne shares his story from NFL stardom to co-founding Lights Out Xtreme Fitness!To keep up with Shawne, follow him @ShawneMerriman and @LightsOutXF on Instagram and Twitter!If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com. Check out www.theradicalformula.com. Like, Share and Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/RadicalHomeofTheRadcast or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that’s radical from @ryanalford @radicalresults @the.rad.cast @nick_weaver @christinaroseyasi  If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

They said, why do you play football? And I said, well, I can physically harm somebody and not go to jail. Right, like that was my answer. Yeah, you can't say that today, can you? You can't say that now, right? I've always felt that Lights Out was bigger than anything I could do on the football field. And that's why when I bought the name and rights to Trademarks, I bought it in 2006.

I'm sure all my teammates didn't like me and I didn't like every single teammate that I had, but we found a way to come together to win football games that was what was most important. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host Ryan Alford. Hey guys what's up welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm here today talking one of my favorite things, football, with the XR Pro, Sean Merriman. What's up, brother? What's up, my man? How you doing? It's good, man. I mean, the acronyms could go on and on now. We got life insurance. I know we're going to get into it. We got lights out, podcasts.

We got lights out apparel, fitness, and we got some damn kick-ass UFC and fighting and all that shit, man. You got it going on, brother. You know what, man? I'm fortunate, right? Because growing up, like your number one thing, you want to play football right you want to be in the nfl you get a chance to live out your dream and now you know all the

stuff that i'm doing now it's uh it's like my second act to everything i wanted to do right um and just that transition because we talked about it off air for a split second it's not it's not easy right yeah it's just not um but i but i've had a lot of fun with it yeah well you look like you're having fun with it i can't wait to get down some of those rabbit holes um but sean i mean you know it take half a second on google for someone to read and do things so we don't have to rehash everything but i do want and to give people some you know your back history you know you know as condensed as you want it to be but like your story i know huge chargers i mean i remember you just

wrecking people like i remember you were like that dude like that's like that freak like they talk about some of the freaks now i'm like dude sean merriman would wreck some people somebody's asking me like oh i remember that name i'm like yeah you remember that name because he fucking destroyed people like you were a beast man but uh talk about talk about the football background and then we'll get into some business yeah i i um i grew up in prince george's county maryland uh and so we grew up in the late 80s and 90s where uh when i was right next to washington dc which is like the it was a crack epidemic, the murder capital of the country for almost a decade. And so I grew up

around that. And it was tough. We were homeless several different times, at least two or three different times where we lost our home due to fires because we couldn't pay our electricity bills. My mom lit candles in there because of light and gas got cut

off. So we, we, a house burned down. We lost that, lived in a shelter back of cars. And so, you know, kind of just fast forward and everything like that, because that can be a whole hour in it on its own. I ended up going to university of Maryland and I committed to university of Maryland as a junior. And the reason why is because I was home. I didn't want to leave. My mom leave, my high school coaches, friends. I wanted everybody to come and watch me play. So I went to University of Maryland, had a great career

there, but ended up leaving early. When I found out that I was going to go somewhere in the top 10, top 15 of the first round of draft, I was like, this type of shit doesn't happen, right? So you want to take advantage of it. And then the rest is history. You know, I got out and got that nickname Lights Out my sophomore year in high school. Yeah, I knocked out four players in one game in high school, and I ended up getting that nickname Lights Out, and I kind of carried that all the way through where was that you know that energy and that edge like was that

just bottled up physical capability or was it like you know you were talking about it you know some of those bad times and some of that those challenges mean, was any of that bottled up from that? I mean, cause I can't help but think that maybe it was. A hundred percent. And then kind of taking a step further, it was my escape. Right. I remember when I was, I was rated my sophomore year in high school. I was, I don't know, top hundred defensive player or something like that in the country. Yeah. And it was my first ESPN. Mind you, I had no media training and stuff like that then the country. It was my first ESPN.

Mind you, I had no media training and stuff like that then. You don't get that from where I came from. They said, why do you play football? I said, well, I can physically harm somebody and not go to jail. That was my answer. You can't say that today, can you? You can't say that now.

At the time, because of everything that i did go through like that was my that few hours a day at practice or games was me being able to escape what i was going through at home and not having much you know whether i was going to come home and the eviction notice is on the door or were we going to have food or life school so that two hours was my was my getaway from everything else and in return i just started to light people up you know i was like angry and physical i needed you know get out aggression and i hated you know my circumstances in life um and then i would i felt good after practice after games i was like

that was my meditation my therapy whatever it was but you know over a period of time i just started to play like that like that was just my attitude I was nasty and physical and wanted to hit everybody because that was the only way I learned the game uh and it just you know translated all the way through college and um and then to the pros it was hard to turn that off like you know coming off the field you know both you know we'll talk about the transition after football but like seems like some of that would be you know hard to turn off but was it was it hard to kind of leave that behind when you got off the football field uh no not really

but the attitude did you feel like you needed to carry it forward? I definitely had a chip on my shoulder. There's no doubt about it. Even now, now the chip has changed from me seeing another opponent to me being eager to want to prove people wrong in business or grow and all that stuff. So the chip has definitely changed, but it's still there. So, yes, I had a chip on my shoulder. But walking off the field, it was almost like an actor, right,

to go and take Leonardo DiCaprio and the Great Gatsby. He's not calling people old sport, you know, right, in the street and acting like the Great Gatsby. It was like he was an actor. He was a character for that movie and for that role. And that's how I felt. It was like I had this lights out demeanor. I end up getting a blue mohawk. I had tattoos everywhere, flying around and just being like this guy. And actually, when I walked off the field, it was it was it was the opposite.

You know, I wasn't you know, I wasn't that guy. But during those four quarters, 60 minutes of football, you can go out and be whoever the hell you want to be. And I always say this, leave it on the field. Everything you have, leave it on the field. And I still stand true to this day. How many years did you play in the pros? Eight. Eight, yeah.

I mean, you hear pros talk about it, but I don't know that people that didn't have that energy flow and got both the attention and everything like that, how hard it is to transition. I mean, maybe, I mean maybe I mean in your own words like you know you have heard Jerry Rice talk about others like getting away from the game like the the highs of that you know like the emotional highs and everything how hard was that transition that that first year is beyond tough and I'll tell anybody that is about to retire and i talk to guys all the time

right they said they got a year two years left maybe three i said whatever you want to do when you're done start doing it now and that way when you're done you do it right away because if you have downtime you're going to struggle and you know for me um i went right in the tv i went nfl network and i had my clothing line. I was selling it, you know, variety of sports shops and sports stores and retail. I had plenty of things to do. And it was still some days I sat around was like, is this it? Like, there's no more, you know, going out to practice or working out or hearing a whistle, training camp, OTAs, mini camp.

I mean, all this is done right and so it still hit me and I had plenty of things to do so I can only imagine a guy that's not lined up and ready to transition how hard that would be and that's why sometimes you hear these these horrible stories is it the highs and the endorphins that are missed or is it almost like the army is it like the structure because I heard hearing you talk a little bit made me think less about the lights on and all the attention which I think is probably some of it but what I heard from you there a little bit was just maybe the structure of it all it's the structure and the number one thing is being around the guys right in the locker room

because things happen and talk and be talked about in the locker room you cannot do out in the locker room because things happen and talk and be talked about in the locker room you cannot do out in the workplace it's just you know it's just point blank you can't do it yeah uh and especially even now more so you can't do it because you know it's just being around the guys wins and losses didn't matter it was you around the guys no matter what and what happens is you have people you have players that come from uh from the south of wisconsin midwest and east coast you got some city boys guys who married guys who aren't and one day a week you find a way to get on the same page so you can go out and win the game all these personalities so you look back and like man this this guy was funny as hell right this guy was crazy as hell so you missed the you missed being around the guys more, more so than anything else.

And that was what people struggle with first. And then you're right. The structure of somebody telling you, Hey, you got to be here to work out at eight o'clock in the morning. We got film after this and we got practice, got lunch at three, you know, so the structure part is gone and you got to figure it out. So we transitioned, you were ready you teed it up you had nfl network you've got the the apparel company lights out um nature or nurture like were you just a natural born entrepreneur waiting to come out of the bottle or like did

you absorb and learn from others no i was I was just, I was natural, man. I've always, I mean, when I was a kid, I was selling, you know, five or six Nintendo games to get the one best one, right? And I'll go out and wash cars, you know, during the summers, cut grass, shovel snow, rake leaves, and I would take it and use all the money for what I wanted to, you know,

whether I wanted to go buy a new mouthpiece or football equipment or cleats. I was always hustling in a way. And I think that this entrepreneur word has kind of become more recent, but you look back on everything now, even to the point of branding, right? I mean, I look back on everything that I did when I was a kid or even, you or even having a nickname like Lights Out at 16 years old and getting a tattoo on my right forearm. It was branding. It was marketing. I think that we just use the word for it now.

So, you know, though I had mentors and things, I was doing this long before anybody came into the picture. No, but you did. You created the brand. I mean, you talked about the mohawk and the look and the feel, and you became the character, so to speak, but the persona of a brand or a machine. I mean, you were that.

I mean, and yeah, all these words have gotten buzzy and everything with social media and stuff, which I know we're going to talk about, but I think you were probably a little ahead of your time with having that both on the field I mean it's one thing to do all those gimmicks and then not live up to it but then you know you destroying quarterbacks and taking people off the field you know like you lived up to it in both stature and brand. Yeah, and you know what? So as you said, right, you had what I did on the football field as creating this character, this persona, all these things.

But in the hindsight of it, I was just kind of the launching pad to everything with the brand. I've always felt that Lights Out was bigger than anything I could do on the football field. And that's why when I bought the name and rights to Trademarks, I bought it in 2006. I bought it for, you know, numerous things and clothing, workout stuff and equipment, marketing and advertisement, energy drinks. This is something I acquired from another company at the age of 21 years old. And so I don't even know if trademarking was even that big

and if people talked about it enough. And I just took those extra steps to know that this brand was going to be a lot bigger than I ever could be. So what's that transition? Like, you know, you've had a lot of iterations. What's the – how would you compare being in business versus being in football? You know, and I, and I know business was football was business.

There's contracts you're working. So I don't want to minimize that at all. I know it's a business, but how would you compare the two? So funny story. I used to absolutely hate when I go, when I retire and I go into these business meetings and people would always use a football analogy to explain whatever business opportunity we're talking about and in my head I think like dude I'm not dumb you know you can I speak the same lingo you speak right so

I don't care if it's like uh you know trademark stuff or uh you know stocks or whatever whatever the business we're talking about somebody in the room would always make a football analogy and say, hey, you know, this this is like, you know, the quarterback and say, listen, you don't have to you don't have to do that. So fast forward after enough of those meetings. And I would listen to what some of these people say about making these comparisons. And I said, holy shit, this is very much like football. And I started thinking of it over and over again, right? There's a team aspect. So you're not going to be successful without a good team. And that's whether it's employees, partners, whatever it is. So there's your team aspect. Overcoming adversity, football, knee injuries that I've had, Achilles, body parts,

whatever it is, you're overcoming, having to find a way to get back on the field. Business, you're going to get knocked on your ass. You got to find a way to get back up and go back at it again. Being able sometimes to work with people you don't necessarily like, you know, like I'm sure all my teammates didn't like me and I didn't like every single teammate that I had. But we found a way to come together to win football games. And that was what was most important. Also, being able to be creative. Right. I mean, I had this sack dance and all the stuff that I kind of created about this moniker, this presence that I had in the football field. So there were so many similarities that I got to the point where I started to go to meetings and give these like these comparisons. I'm like, yeah, we're talking about, you know, whatever deal or whatever it was.

And I say, OK, that's like, you know, the fullback. Right. Going to the flats. You know, you got you know, so I started to use that because football was so much like real life and the things you have to deal with and that I started looking at it as an advantage when I retired at more so than a disadvantage yeah I love it man talk with ex all pro Sean Merriman Sean I mean I want to transition to more social media and the business side, but like, what's the biggest thing you miss about football and, you know, maybe, I don't know if there's any misconceptions about football players in general.

I think the biggest thing I miss is being able to compete. Right. Like, you know, to go against Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, some of these all-pro left tackles, right, Hall of Fame left tackles that I played against, you got to get up for that, right?

Because it's you, it's like man versus man, you versus him, and some big, oh, this guy's going to do this, he's not going to let you side the quarterback. You watch the film looking at certain tendencies and what the offensive line do and what plays they like to run and what yard line. The preparation and to be able to compete,

I miss probably the most because in my opinion, there's no team game especially like football. You're going to have 10 guys on the field doing the perfect thing, everything he's supposed to do. You got one guy thing, everything he's supposed to do. And you got one guy not doing what he's supposed to do,

and that whole play is ruined, right? And so that part I missed a lot. Yeah. And it's so funny you bring up the 10 and the 1. Like I was talking to someone about that. Like it wasn't that into football. And they go, why do you love football? I don't know. I think i just appreciate the the symphony of it all like it's kind of like the orchestra like you know there's a bad violinist you're gonna hear it it ain't gonna work the song

ain't gonna sing you know like it's not gonna be good the uh so let's talk about lights out so the brand carried forward uh you've got fitness gear. You've got apparel. I know you can share all that. What's that experience been like? And, you know, if I was an ex-NFL player, I would probably be like, if I build it, they will come. But something tells me it's never as easy as that. No, never.

I'm still knocking down those same doors that a lot of other people have to knock down. I'll get into any meeting just about I want to meet with anybody because by football play and people name recognition, people know who I am. So they know I'm not just coming to meet with them because I got some free time to waste. So I'll get into meetings. But I do have to do the same convincing that everyone else is out here trying to promote or grow a company. It doesn't change, right?

You got people that are going there that won't see your vision. They won't understand what you're trying to build. And you may have to go do it on your own so they can realize it and come back. And that's happened to me several times. You know, when I launched Lights Out Extreme Fighting,

I had to go and pitch it to Fox Sports because that's what we started out at, the regionals. And I had to make sure they gave me an opportunity. And, you know, now we're on Fubo Sports, Fubo TV. I had to do the same thing. So it's not like I call and pick up the phone, like, hey, I'm Sean Merriman. I play football. Give me a deal.

Like, it's none of that going on. If anybody thinks that it's the flying across country, right. Sitting down with all the important people in the room to make decisions, letting them know what my vision is and how I'm going to execute it. And then you still got to come back. You got people in the room that may not be convinced. And so you have to, when you get your opportunity, you got people in the room that may not be convinced and so you have to when you get your opportunity you got to convince them yeah is um where all is the fitness stuff i mean are you i know you got your own d2c stuff but where all can like are you distributed yeah we were in tillies for some years um and actually we're we're going this next year, we should be fully back in the retail. We're going to potentially launch a really, really big retail store, probably one of the biggest in the country.

And and get it going again, because the apparel space is like, honestly, my first love, because that's where I started. And even when I was playing, I was I was still in sports metal billion shops. I was still selling lights out here. I was still in sports middle billiard shops. I was still selling lights out gear. And I just, I love the apparel space so much because it's a part of the overall lights out brand. Yeah. Is the transition into fighting, you know, like I told you pre-episode, like I remembered you. I remembered like, I'm never scared of anyone over TV, but if there's everyone I was like,'t want to get hit by it might have been you and I'm a big dude and I'm like I don't want that

fucker hitting me um and but like was fighting just always a passion and it's like been this national transition for you yeah actually that was probably my most natural transition right because um you know for one I grew up in Prince George County, Maryland, that Washington area, that Washington, D.C. area, that DMV area, it was a ton of boxers, professional boxers, champs. And so they would come around my neighborhood. I would box a lot as a kid. We would always throw on the gloves in the neighborhood and box at the cookouts and family

reunions. It was just a part of it. Boxing, the cookouts, the family reunions, it was just a part of it. And so when I transitioned into MMA, a good friend of mine, Jay Glazer, in 2006, got me involved in MMA. My first day training in MMA was with him and Randy Gator. And so that was my instrument. Welcome to the sport. Right.

Yeah. You know, and like you can imagine, it wasn't so great right um yeah because randy was at that time still even still on top of his game so um you know mma picked up a lot of steam in the mid late 2000s and you know the ufc has done a great job of just branding the hell out of the sport and making it as big as it is today. And now look at the week or two ago, Adrian Peterson just fought Le'Veon Bell, right? A boxing match. There's going to be a long list of former athletes that get into some form of combat sports when they're done. And it's recommended, in my opinion, because that transition, as we just talked about,

is not easy. And some of these guys get done and still have something left in the tank, and they want to go compete at something. They can't play football anymore. They're not going to get picked up by a team. And a lot of these guys start training combat sports, MMA. So I'm actively transitioning former guys right now. Well, and that's interesting because you can play in the –

that's what's so fascinating i look at you and you i mean you look young anyway but it's like i mean if i didn't know better i think you were still you know i mean like a lot of you guys play six eight ten years which is good career in the pros um but then you're 30 31 32 33 i mean you're still very athletic maybe not maybe a bad ankle bad knee or something that you just can't be at all you know be you know full force football but there's still a lot of athletic ability there so it does seem like kind of a now and like shit who's these boxers some of these fighters you know at 40 i mean if damn tom Tom Brady can play football at 45, then I think an ex-football player can kick somebody's ass at 33.

Yeah. No, no question about it. Absolutely. And, you know, what's funny about that is it's not, if you look at the grand scheme of things, it's not that long in football, right? So I retired at 28. You know, you said 33, 34.

The problem why I didn't sign and fight when I got dumped because they wasn't paying they yeah opportunity for you know when I remember pitching when I when I retired in 2013 and said hey man I want to go fight in pay-per-view I remember asking for half a million dollars for me to fight which is now is not much if you have a if you have a name and you can fight and you can sell pay-per-views that's a starting point half a million dollars for anybody that you know is fighting another person with a personality or following is a starting point so that's why i'm like come on you know these guys they only played two three years they still you know they can't get back into the nfl they're tired maybe tired of of

getting pushed to the side i bring them i bring them over yeah is um what's the what's what's been the learning curve with promotion and you know everything that goes into the fight game i'm curious on that and also curious on you know i know dana white has done an incredible job with ufc i'm not less question about why they're so popular i know what you know the machine he's built what he's done but damn i grew up watching boxing with my grandfather and like i you know to see kind of the decline of boxing you know has has hurt me a bit you know and i don't know why i mean maybe it's starting to pick back up but i know that was kind of a double loaded question but uh i'd love to know your perspective well for one um what would kill boxing the fastest is the uneven matches right you got you got these

guys as 23 and 0 fighting somebody that's 10 and 20 right or, or 10 and 15. And also, I believe that the promoters and managers, you know, kind of made the sport decline faster than what it is because they're holding their champ back or somebody with a big name from fighting another big name afraid that if they lose, they're going to lose the breadwinner. And that's happening too much. And what Dana and those guys done at ufc is the best is are fighting the best right you're getting the number one and number two the number one and

number four number one and number three they're fighting each other all the time so the best man actually it literally wins boxing that's that's what killed the sport that's what killed the sport. That's what killed the sport because you got a guy that's an extreme, talented fighter, big name, fighting somebody that no one heard of. And when you have that enough, people are not going to pay for it. Why do you think people are okay with, you know, and I know there's a few of these now, but for the most part, the champion in any divisions like 16 and 5 you know what i mean like i mean it's okay that he's lost you know because they're fighting their ass off they fight

the best but in boxing you do kind of they've built it up to where even i think i do it myself oh he's got a couple losses he must not be you know and i'm like shit i don't know why i think that way i don't know why it's acceptable in in UFC to lose, but in boxing it isn't. Well, because MMA, there's so many different disciplines, right? You might have a guy that's a great wrestler, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, a striker, box. And so sometimes you're just outmatched. You get outsmarted. And most of these boxers have been boxing since they were 10, 11 years old.

So they're so technical that if you lose in boxing, it's automatically that that guy is so much better than you. And that's not true. I give Canelo all the respect in the world for stepping up a weight class, even though he lost. He went for it, and he didn't go fight another guy who he could just put through the ropes and knock out. And so while other people

said oh he lost and and that's the boxing community right that's the boxing community which i don't agree with other guy other people are saying that for me i'm like damn that he went to go he was unmasked yeah right it was he was he was fighting a bigger guy and it wasn't even matched but he did it and so boxing is not going to pick up unless Javante Davis is going to fight Ryan, right? Or, you know what? He's finally got freaking Spence and whatever his name is. I can't keep up with every name, but Errol Spence Jr.

and freaking Terrence Crawford. Crawford. I mean, those guys should have fought three years. I mean, it gets to where it's the end of the game. The guys should have fought three years ago in their prime. We're going to see Canelo and Triple G for the third time, which is good, but it's like some of these things get delayed so much. Yeah, because Hayden needs to fight Terrence Crawford or Errol Spence.

In order for boxing to come back to compete with any MMA, those fights are going to have to happen. And if the promoters and these people are guarding them and trying to have this huge, huge, huge big payday, yes, everybody will get paid, but it's not going to do much for the sport and so unless the you know number one fights number two or three number four guy fights you know number eight number seven that's not the boxing is going to stay where it's at it's never going to be able to take MMA again yeah oh I hope somebody gets their head out of their ass but

talk to me about uh fighting league with Lights Out. Like where are we headed with that? I know you talked about some of the ex-pro players. Where are you wanting to take your league and everything? Yeah, so we're on FUBO TV, FUBO Sports. We start back up in November. We go every month after that. And so what I'm looking to do here, probably in the next few weeks, start announcing

three dates at a time, venues and so forth. I love this sport, man. I wish that somebody saw back in 2013 when I retired how much I love this sport. I would have done it and paid me

accordingly. To be on the backside side of this now um being part of the production being part of the uh you know we have big tv trucks outside and you know just everything yeah um we we want to be you know the biggest minor league there is out there right we want usc to come and see our talent um and be respectable and and have a great brand and back to me i just i want to be able to get these fighters more fights right you have so many fighters out there and not enough quality promotions to give them opportunity and lights out you know we can do that yeah that's great man is um

are you partnered with anyone? I mean, I know it's a lot with your name and stuff, but are you partnered other than FUBO and stuff like that? Who else are some of your partners or sponsors? Well, FUBO is obviously our exclusive partner with our fights. Yep. But we always partner for our fights with different casinos okay fubo obviously fubo sportsbook who just just launched just recently yep um and sooner or later you will

be able to bet during our fights through the fubo app you know bet knockouts and chokes and everything else you know we're getting to that point where uh you know at least 10 or 9 or 10 states you'll be able to you know gamble with this and bet on the fight being a gambling that's changed a lot i hadn't entered your days you know that's several years ago i felt uncomfortable talking about it yeah uh because it was so frowned upon that i'll tell you this i didn't even know what an over-under was until I retired. I had no idea. If somebody asked me what an over-under was,

I looked at you like, listen, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. That's probably a good thing. Yeah. At least while you're playing. But it's crazy. But now, I mean, it's wide open. It's the wild, wild west out there. I mean, I really commend how you view social media.

We talked pre-episode a little bit about this, how much power there is in social media for growing a brand and doing business. Talk about how you've leveraged it. You know, for me, I like, for one, one thing I never really talk about on social media is politics, religion, that type of thing, because it's a waste of time for me. It's not like I'm not interested in politics. I don't care what's going on. But, you know, for me, social media is not the place for me for that. Right.

So I use I have these sign them up or don't sign them up. Funny videos where I post fights and people like it. So, you know, it's funny. It's entertaining. If the guy if the guys can fight, sign them up. They can't fight. Don't sign them up. And I saw for that I promote the league. I promote what I do. You know, and so I see people sometimes taking these vacations once a month or this and that, which is all fine. I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't go on vacation, but I'm just, I'm just about growing this brand and working. Uh, give me a gym, an hour and a half, six days a week. Give me some food, give me six hours of sleep and just let me work, man. That's, that's how I like my schedule.

I was going to ask you what your routine is these days, you know, still, still lift a lot. Yeah, I just, um, so this morning I work out at this place in Vegas. I live in Vegas full time, full time called Dragon's Lair. Flex Lewis, he's a former bodybuilder. He owns it. So I go there three days a week and I go to Extreme Couture, train there, Randy Couture's gym a few days a week to actually, you know,

hitting mitts and rolling and stuff like that. So I'm pretty active, man. It's so much part of my makeup, like I'm scared not to. I always felt that if you've been doing something for so long and then you just stop, I don't know if I'll just croak and fall right over if I miss the gym for a week. So I don't even know what that feels like. I know.

What does Sean Merriman do for fun these days? What's fun? Don't say go to the gym. But what is? No, no, no. You know what I like to do is, so I try to base everything around what I'm already doing, right? So yesterday I was in Arizona.

I had some meetings, meeting my really good friend, Jeff Hoffman, who co-founded a Priceline. And so what I would do is I would like stay an extra day somewhere. Right. So if I got to meet in Miami or New York, wherever I go, I'll try to stay there and hang out, get some drinks, catch up dinner with whoever I can. So that that's pretty much the fun, the most fun that I get. But, you know, it's not, you know, going somewhere for a week or vacation. I mean, that that's just totally out the question. So I'll just try to book trips where I can stay an extra day somewhere and, uh, enjoy it.

Yeah. Do you think, uh, is there a good, like, you know, you've embraced that you've taken advantage of the opportunities of social media and growing brands and making deals and all that, but like the average players, are they kind of just left to their own devices i mean is it like you either see it and you go after it or you don't like i mean i just i don't see a lot of education or what i don't know what happens you know like some of these guys like yourself go make it happen and some just kind of fade away you know we talked about you know the adrenaline and running out to 70,000 people to spotlight and all this stuff um and

just really a passion for the sport that you played you know I tell a lot of former guys this um if you find that same passion right that whatever that was and let me tell you it's next to impossible to replace that feeling of running out to 70,000 screaming people. You make it a big catch, big tackle sack. Yeah. Turnover. Everybody's going crazy. Your teammates are slapping you on top of the head and patting you on the back. You get home and you got, you know, 50 text messages for everybody because you just had three sacks on Monday night football. You can't replace that feeling. That's that part of it is just not going to happen. The next thing you can do is replace the feeling

of something you're building and see it actually panning out like you planned for it to pan out. That is the closest thing for me that I can get back to that feeling? And because athletes are some of the most disciplined, hardworking, like, I mean, think about it. My whole life has been structured, right? Since I was 10 years old, I was told what time to eat, told what time to wake up, told what time to watch film and practice and go to what time I had to go to sleep to be ready for practice the next day.

My whole life is structured. And so what do you need out here to be successful? Two things, discipline and structure. If you have those, you got a good chance of being successful at anything because that's what a lot of people lack. A lot of people lack just being disciplined and having structure in their life, which is one of the only things that I know. and having structure in their life, which is one of the only things that I know. I love it, brother. I know I'd be remiss if I didn't like get in life insurance. I mean, where's the life insurance?

I like, you know, like as it lights out life insurance. Come on. You know, what's crazy is so during the pandemic, right? And everybody I felt got hit in some kind of way during the pandemic. Right. You lost something. You had to figure it out. Everybody, no matter if you were worth one billion dollars or one hundred dollars during the pandemic, everybody had to figure it out. And when everything shut down for the MMA league, the TV shows, when I was shooting some stuff with Fox Sports then and doing some broadcasting work, everything shut down. I lost everything in a matter of four days.

Shut down, done. And so one of my best friends came up to me and said, hey, man, you should do life insurance. I laughed at him. I said, okay, do you want to have a red shirt and some khakis too while I'm at it? Or knock on doors? And I made a joke of it. And I said, OK, you want to have a red shirt and some khakis to why I'm at it? I'm not going to do it. And I made a joke of it. Yeah. And I say, you know what? We were for three or four months into the pandemic.

I said, let me just go ahead and get my insurance license. I might not ever use it. Might not do anything with it, but at least I'll have it. So I end up partnering with this company called Family First Life. And I went with them. One of the founders of it, his name is Sean Mike. We had a really good conversation, same mindset when it came to a bunch of different things. But the second part of it is they were paying more compensation than everybody else. And at the time, I knew nothing about insurance,

compensation, what company did what. And so I said, and I immediately started to think, damn, everybody don't know you can make more money so i started to build an agency so now i have you know 207 agents in my agency and you know we're probably growing 30 to 40 agents a month at this point and so my goal is to get to a thousand plus agents and help people make as much money as they possibly can i love it man hey help it's funny when you help others it usually comes back around to yourself right yeah it's it's so you know what you don't think about doing it as you're doing it but somehow some way it's like a boomerang effect

it happens every single time sean man i could talk to you all day but uh tell me let's tell everybody where they can keep up with you your your brands, your insurance and all that stuff. People want to learn more about you. Yeah, just follow me at Sean Merman on Instagram and Twitter. The Lights Out XF is the MMA handle, Lights Out XF for Lights Out Extreme Fighting. And looking for a job, man, lightsoutagency.com. And that's pretty much it, man. But I'm rocking over here.

No, you are. And, you know, ironically enough, you said, you know, at the beginning you were talking about, like, people having to use the football and all that analogies, like they needed to, like, talk in a different language. I think I listen to you and I hear a businessman that just happened to play football. You're right, man. People joke about that now, especially because I'm so far removed from the game.

And so everybody, when I'm talking to some people, they may not know or remember what they didn't watch football. And so they automatically assume I have this stuff going on. Like, hey, which business school did you go to? I said, I didn't go to business school. Trust me. School of hard knocks called real life. That's right. Sean, man, I really appreciate it.

And everybody out there listening, you need to go watch Sean take somebody's head off if you haven't seen any of those highlights. But then listen to this episode and you'll learn even another lesson sean really appreciate you coming on brother hey thanks for having me on man i appreciate it hey guys you know where to find us the radcast.com search for lights out you'll find all the highlight clips from today you might throw up some highlights from sean knocking people out on the football field and now he's knocking them out on the business field. We appreciate Sean.

You know where to find me. I'm at Ryan Alford on the platform. Go follow me on TikTok. I'm blowing up. We'll see you next time on the Radcast.