Start With A Win - Interview With Super Bowl Champ Ryan Harris

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

Our guest on this episode of the Start with a Win podcast is Ryan Harris, husband, father, author, speaker, and 10-year NFL veteran who won the Super Bowl with the 2015 Denver Broncos. Ryan is a huge advocate of building your mindset and then putting in the work needed to get better or grow. He has used the phrase “I am, I can, I will” throughout his life to push himself to overcome and accomplish whatever is in front of him. It might sound counterintuitive, but Ryan says that your goal is not the most important thing to work towards. In fact, it is critical to develop your mindset and set up your system for reaching goals, because this system will outlive any of your goals and if it is effective, it will help you crush more goals than you ever dreamed you could achieve. Like many athletes, Ryan welcomes failures because he sees them as opportunities for learning and growth, encouraging him to improve and succeed the next time.Ryan has been very encouraged by “The Man in the Arena” speech by President Theodore Roosevelt when it comes to facing public scrutiny, and he is constantly reminding himself that internal validation is more gratifying than external praise. He recognizes that the key component of the Broncos’ 2015 Super Bowl win was their passion for the details throughout the season and the game, and he applies that passion to his speaking, broadcasting, and parenting.Links:“Mindset for Mastery” by Ryan Harris: https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Mastery-Champions-Reaching-Greatness-ebook/dp/B07JB8P7QB “The Man in the Arena” speech by Theodore Roosevelt: http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/adamcontosREMAXCEO/https://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/

At top of the 12th floor of the REMAX World Headquarters, you're listening to Start With a Win with CEO Adam Kantos. And welcome to Start With a Win. Adam Kantos here, top of the 12th floor at REMAX World Headquarters. Very special guest with me here today, best-selling author, football champion, and amazing guy all around. Ryan Harris, glad to have you here with us today, Ryan. Thanks for having me. The World Headquarters, I like that. You got to say that as often as possible. Welcome to the World Headquarters. I got to find mine. Yeah, we're going for global headquarters one of these days. Actually, no, we are global. We're over 110 countries and territories all over the world, but I think intergalactic is my next.

I like that. Yeah. Go beyond. That's right. Let's stay on Earth. Space tourism is the new word we got to start getting our heads around. There you go. So I like intergalactic. Yeah. There you go. So man, you have such a cool history. You done a lot i mean you know super bowl champion you know you're a best-selling author a well-known speaker traveling all over the place but it's it's it's kind of cool because pre-show you know talking to you we're sitting here chatting and i'm going holy smokes you've been through a lot man yeah yeah so tough to tough to say yes across

from you you know and everything uh that you've done and been through. But yeah, you know, 10 years in the NFL, nine different surgeries, you know, played on four different teams, been across the country at different times, you know, been told that I had soft bones. That's why I got injured. One coach told me that. Lost my job because I was arrogant and ended up working my way back into getting an opportunity to help the Broncos win a championship in 2015.

Started 19 games. And that was after a season. I started 15 games. And the Kansas City Chiefs said to me, you got no more football left. So I love that they didn't bring me back because I was able to win. And then I know a lot of those guys still. So I love wearing the ring around them. Like, hey, great to see you.

So glad you let me go with some gas in the tank. There you go. And then I got to play for the Steelers, which was just an unbelievable franchise. They do things so differently. And you talk about between playing with Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger, two Hall of Fame quarterbacks and some of the greatest talent in the NFL and winning at the highest level. I've been very fortunate to earn my keep.

Very cool. Let's unpack some of this and some of the lessons in your book because Start With a Win is about doing those little things that matter every day and getting up on the right foot and understanding the challenge happens. And we do hit the wall, but what do you do after that? So let's go back. You got into football early, I'm guessing. You played probably pretty well in high school.

And then you got to Notre Dame. You were well sought after. They were looking for you as an offensive tackle, right? Yeah, and that should be another book, The Lies Told During Recruiting. Some teams, Michigan said, you can play defensive tackle and offensive tackle. But yeah, Notre Dame, I was heavily recruited. It's funny, though, because I only started football in the eighth grade. In my first ever practice, I was just so excited to have our pads. And one of the biggest guys on the team, also

happened to be my friend at school, was like, hey, man, let's go heads up. It's kind of the Oklahoma drill where you lay like back to back and your heads are touching. You just flip over and run into each other, right? But at the time, I didn't know what it was. I'm like, man, I can't do it. He's like, what do you mean you can't do it? I'm like, all right, you can't tell anybody. But I don't know how to hit. The'm like, man, I can't do it. He's like, what do you mean you can't do it? I'm like, all right, you can't tell anybody. But I don't know how to hit. The whole team starts laughing. Of course, he tells everybody. The coaches are laughing at me.

And I did not want to go back to practice that next day. But fortunately, I went back. And some kid got an interception, started running down the sideline. I ran at him. And it turns out I knew how to hit. So I took that all the way and went to Notre Dame, which was an unbelievable experience. Learned so much, played great football against great athletes. And it was really, really fun when I was young. Well, your first practice in Notre

Dame was a little bit of a rough start, wasn't it? First eight days. Yeah. Yeah. I was getting my tail kicked, man. I mean, physically, like, you know, and you as a former Marine, you know better than me when you are physically getting beaten and know and you as a former marine you you know better than me when you are physically getting beaten and mentally you're not there where you need to be yet it can be devastating right i mean one time sometimes you get hit in football and you make the weirdest sounds right and so one one particular practice those first eight days the senior hit me and it's oh you know just like this like screech and one of my cleats fell off and then he stepped on my inner thigh and i'm just like oh my god screech. And one of my cleats fell off and then he stepped on my

inner thigh and I'm just like, oh my God, I was totally dominated. And everybody's there. Ooh, you know, but that night, you know, I said to myself, I have to do something different. I, I, I am a great football player. I am here to play football. I can find a way to be better and to grow. And I will work on this one drill the next day. So I sat there. I visualized the one specific drill. And the next day, I fired off and hit him so hard. Startled him, me, and the same people are saying, ooh, the day before.

We're saying, ooh, the next day. And that was one of the first days I chose my mindset. And I am, I can, I will came up multiple times for me in failures, in success. When the Chiefs told me I didn't have enough football left, when I was terrified the night before the Super Bowl that my greatest failure was going to be my greatest success. I used it all the time to build my mindset. And like you say, start with the win. It's a choice we make.

And I say celebrate every win every day because there's wins all around us. We have to choose to see them and see how far we've come. So there's, obviously there's a lot that happens in our lives. I mean, everything from, you know, business success and failures to, to personal relationships. I mean, heck, you might, you know, slide your car into a, into a fence during this, you know, the snowy weather we're seeing in Colorado right now, but is it, is it the end? I mean, that's the big question. You, you sat there and you thought after, you know, obviously do I know how to hit all the way up to you're just getting, getting worked at, at practice in Notre Dame. What, what mindset shift do you, you know, how do you get through that? How can somebody listening to this podcast go,

all right, I'm down in the dumps right now. It's time to flip that switch and go from I can't to I will. Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. And one, it's a choice, but here's the other fact. We have lived beyond every terrible day that we've had in our life. And when you look at it, no matter who you are and where you're from, we're all going to share these similar experiences in life, failure, success, our first Starbucks, right? And since we are going to live beyond these moments, why not choose to create your beyond? And from an early age, I decided I would create my beyond. I screeched in front of a hundred guys who I'm trying to gain the respect of and I got to find my cleat. But you know what? I'm breathing beyond that moment. I'm going to live beyond it. Instead of just shuddering in that moment and running away, I'm going to make

something different. And that's where I can really help me out. When you say the words, I can, you find something that you're doing. You know, you get your hands chopped down in football. You give up a sack. The easiest thing in life when a mistake happens. Whose fault was it, right? Couldn't possibly have been ours. But when you say, okay, I can change the way I punch. I can change the way I set. I can focus on this one move. It can really be the difference. So I always talk with people about, hey, you're going to live beyond anyways. So what does your beyond look like? And we can create that when we know we have that power and that choice. So do you think there's, you know, you talk about I can, I can, you know, the self

talk in that it's just not a thought. It's, it seems like it's more than a thought of, oh, I should get over this. It is, it's this commitment that's happening in your head. Do you participate in that self talk? Do you, you know, 1000%. How do you do that? And so do your favorite athletes, by the way, Michaela Schifrin, LeBron James, you know, Michael Jordan, you know, visualization is huge for me. You know, I sat there the night before the Super Bowl. I said, I am terrified that my greatest achievement will be my greatest failure. I can go out the next day, put my pads on, knock the crap out of someone. I will. And I said, I will raise the trophy. And so one of the things I did is I sat

there, I closed my eyes and it was crazy. When you win the Super Bowl, you get this big metal Lombardi trophy, right? And so I was imagining raising this trophy. My hands are on it and I'm touching it, but I could only see it from the bottom up. And I thought that was so crazy because I'd never held it before. Fast forward, 24 hours later, here's Peyton Manning handing me down the Lombardi trophy and I'm touching it for the first time, looking at it from the bottom up. So your visualization, when you do that, your brain creates neural pathways that thinks it's real. That's why your favorite athlete after their biggest moment can give an interview and talk about what happened. They saw that happening. They prepared for it. They worked for it. They overcame for it. And those are the things that

I do on a daily basis. I am a parent. I can find time even when I'm away to FaceTime my kids or to read a book on a video and send it to them. I will. I will read this book. I will show them what this airport in this city looks like with a video. And so you can use it anywhere you are to kind of create motion and create that work that you need to do to ultimately achieve your goals. That's so powerful, so amazing, and so true. I mean, visualization is a huge part of some of the world that I've been through in law enforcement, tactical operations, things like that, all the way up to your professional

athlete career. And you see a lot of people, they put on their headphones, and they got their eyes closed, and their bodies are moving or shaking or something like that. Is that what's going through a lot of athletes' heads at that time? You know what's funny? A lot of guys, what people don't know, a lot of guys don't have any music playing. Really? A lot of guys just have the headphones on so no one bothers them. Oh, nice. And that's the thing. I had teammates that would walk the field barefoot. I had teammates that would listen to heavy metal rock music. I would have teammates that listened to classical Bach before a game.

But the thing is that every professional, every great professional athlete I've been around, there's a process to their game. And that's one of the reasons why I was contacted a couple times after I chose to retire. Teams wanted me to come back because they knew that even though I may have been older than other guys, I had a process that allowed me to be successful in a game. I could go right now and two and a half hours before the game, I could tell you what I'm doing. I could tell you an hour and a half what I'm doing. I used to go out before every practice, 10, 15 minutes, get some extra footwork in because as a lineman, you use that every day. So I had a process that helped me perform. And that's one of the things that

talented professionals of any kind, that's what you have to do. You have to have a process that helps you perform. So it's not your goals, it's your systems and processes that get you there. Absolutely, because you live beyond your goals, right? I mean, you had a goal to become a Marine, you did that, then what, right? So there's always, you know, we live here in Colorado, not one person has climbed just one mountain. You climb a mountain, you say, oh, okay, there's another one to go, right? If you do 14ers, you want to get all the 14ers. And that's life too. And the more we realize that even when we set goals, we're going to be beyond them. It's that process. It's that

visualization. It's your mindset that will be with you through and past every achievement. Amazing. Amazing. Let's talk about failures. Let's do it. Yeah. You're hungry for failure. I can see it in your face. I love failure, baby. It's the best. It's the rings on the ladder to success, right? Absolutely. Absolutely.

So you've, not just you, but professional athletes overall. I mean, you want to eat failure for lunch. Breakfast and dinner. Talk us through that. How does that look to you? And how do you get from, okay, there's failure inevitable. Tell us some of those that you or some of the people who we, you know, in public all look up to as professional athletes. What kind of failures do you face and

how do you get through those? Yeah, well, I'll tell you first, every single offensive play in the NFL is designed to score a touchdown. So every play, if you ever watch football that doesn't score a touchdown, there's a failure right there. And one of my biggest failures came my fourth year in the NFL. We had a new coach. He wanted me to learn new things and do something different. And looking back, I was arrogant. I lived in Highlands Ranch, an area here in Denver that's really nice. I had a nice car, a nice house, and I'd already started over 22 games in the NFL. So I was smelling myself a little bit. And what happens in your company, Adam, when people smell themselves and don't really do the work and are unwilling? Yeah, it doesn't last long.

Get fired. That's it. And I got fired. And I'd never been more embarrassed in my life. I had tears coming down my eyes. How do I tell my wife in our first year of marriage, I lost my job because I was arrogant. How do I tell friends coming to town who were looking for tickets? I wasn't gonna be able to get them tickets to the game, you know, and friends on the team who I'd already had weekend plans with that I couldn't go. And all these thoughts went around my head as I had tears in my eyes and hands shaking in disbelief. But then in that moment, I said, I can make sure that I never lose my job again.

I can still be a great husband without being a Denver Bronco. I can stop at Panda Express on the way home and eat orange chicken to eat my feelings. You know what I'm saying? And sure enough, the next morning after my greatest failure that I've, it's just physical. I could feel it in every bone in my body, my failure. I got a call from Gary Kubiak, who's with the Houston Texans. He said, hey, man, why don't you come on down? We think you can help us win. So I did those things I said I would do. I studied more film. I asked more questions. I lifted more. I focused on my technique. I built my process.

And because of that work, I got a call two years later from Gary Kubiak, who is now with the Denver Broncos, who had released me before. But this time he said, hey, Ryan, we need you. Need you to come help us win a championship? Need you to show these young guys how to work. I can do that, coach. And because of that mindset, because of my failure, I rebuilt myself and my career and ended up winning a championship with the 2015 Denver Broncos. Amazing. And I'll tell you, I watched that game. Huge Bronco fan here. Unbelievable. I mean, your job is, you're kind of the bodyguard for that quarterback. Yeah. I mean, that was the toughest thing about being Peyton Manning's blindside. I was like,

man, nobody else is going to lose dinner reservations but me if I get this guy hurt. That's right. You could either be, I could be a Super Bowl champion left tackle, I could be the guy who got Peyton Manning injured and ruined his career and we never won the Super Bowl. And like, try going to Steakhouse in Denver if you're that guy. But Peyton was such a great leader, such a great communicator, taught us so much. And he really helped us out by teaching us the game of football at the level that he knew it at. And we had so much fun, man.

And I love that you say start with a win because winning is fun. It's supposed to be fun. Oh, yeah. And that's why you're having issues in New England because they're not having fun winning anymore in the NFL. And that's crazy. You gotta have fun winning every day. That's right. Somebody took the fun out of it sometime recently. I mean, we gotta, we gotta look at things from a perspective of, all right, let's, let's make a winning situation out of this. Let's make a fun situation out of this instead of let's criticize things and that you know unfortunately we we fall into this rut of criticizing failure uh you know what what society expect of me things like that

i mean you're judged you're in the face of society as a professional athlete you know peyton manning gets sacked too many times on, in a football game. Hey, it's Ryan. Yeah. But you know, fire Ryan right away. Yeah, exactly. Ryan.com. How do you, how do you face public scrutiny and, and how do you stand up and go, all right, I got fired from this team or, um, I got injured in that game and people were depending on me. Uh, how do you get over that? You know, there are people, there are voices, there are, you know, the trolls out there in society. How can you get past that? Well, the speech, the man in the arena helped me a lot from Teddy Roosevelt. You know, knowing that, you know, a lot of the people with Twitter thumbs and who say things, they've never even had the chance. I remember when I was in high school, one of my

best friends at the time, he was a big kid and never gone out for football. He came out for the first practice in pads and he sat on the couch for four hours after practice. He couldn't move or speak and he quit that day. I've been in multiple workouts where big time division one recruits quit in the workout because it was too hard. So I always knew from the beginning that there was a physical aspect to what I did that other people could never have done. Not that no one could ever have done, but that 99% of people would have never done. So that was part of it. But the other part that was huge for me is what matters?

Is it external validation or internal validation? Am I playing football for you? Do I want to win a championship to impress you? I mean, I certainly want to impress you, Adam, but let me tell you something. I never played it down for you, right? It was all for me. I wanted to be my greatest self at something that I had the ability to be great at. I have a skill.

And forget you if you don't see it. I mean, if you didn't think that in college I didn't have a lot of friends because I was a little different, then you're wrong. I didn't have a lot of friends, even on my own team, because I was always dedicated to trying to go to the NFL and get two degrees in three and a half years. If you're not in those two plans, I ain't got time for you. I just don't. And as much fun as it is to party in college, let me tell you about winning the Super Bowl and going to a steakhouse and then Las Vegas afterwards on a private jet, okay? There's levels to this, as you know. That's right.

So for me, it was never about what anybody else thought because people haven't liked me. People didn't like my work ethic. People didn't like that I was always working. People didn't like that I said no my whole life. But it's not about the external validation. It's about the internal validation. What did I want? What could I achieve? And I focused on that as much as I could. Amazing. So we get to the win. We get there. And I wish the people on the podcast could see your face right now because you're hungry for the win. Oh, man. The Super Bowl win was the greatest win. One of the things, when you win the Super Bowl, everything you believe about yourself comes true for other people. It's the biggest I told you so. I think about Muhammad Ali when he said,

eat your words. We were told we were going to lose by 14 in that game. And I remember sitting with DeMarcus Ware the night before, and he's on his phone, and we're sitting there because a lot of athletes, we get massages the night before the game. So we're in this room, and I always thought it would be funny if Broncos fans knew that some of the biggest guys on the team are in a massage room talking the night before a game, right?

And he goes, he's looking at the phone, he's like, we're going to murder him tomorrow. Murder them. We're going to get killed. That right tackle is going to get killed. And sure enough, in one of the first few plays for Carolina, the right tackle gets eaten alive and fumbles the football by Cam Newton. So that win was so incredible. And it was incredible because of the team we had, the guys we had, the fun we had all the time, and the focus to detail, like you mentioned, the details. I mean, talent doesn't win in the NFL. How could it? Every team has talent.

Right. It's details, and it's a passion for those details that are the difference in winning and losing games. So you get to that win. You get there. How do you celebrate that win? Over and over and over again. First, by gratitude. I thanked all my family. My wife, who had been through seven of the nine surgeries with me. At one point, I had a toe surgery, and they had to reattach my toe to my foot,

and she rubbed my foot every day for eight months to get that scar tissue out. Hugged my teammates, laughed. But you know, it's funny you say that because, you know, after the first 30, kind of 20, 30 minutes, you're on fire, and you're like, you know what? I got to go shower, right? Like, yeah, it's like almost a regular day, and then you go to this party after the Super Bowl,

and you're with, like, you know, all the family's excited because, you know, they just came to a party, and it just keeps going, right? But you go to the food, all the players who played in the game are starving because they haven't eaten since 1 o'clock. Here it is, 9.30, and you're just – so all the players are eating, not even talking to each other. We just went to the Super Bowl.

We're eating. But you laugh with each other. You keep those jokes going. And that's one of the first things you feel, though, too, is sadness because that group was never going to be the same. You're never going to be the same. Right. You're never going to be the same. But then we got to go to the White House.

You know, now I'm in broadcasting. I see my different teammates, you know, around the country. And it's not just like we were such a close team. It's not like, hey, Adam, good to see you. It's, Adam, how's the family? Adam, man, what's going on? And, you know, when are you leaving for your favorite destination that you go to all the time, you know? And you can talk trash. You know, one of my teammates, I retired. he texted me and said, you're lucky you retired.

We're supposed to play you next year. I was going to eat you alive, you know, and we never went against each other, but that's just kind of the nature it was. So we celebrated the win with gratitude. But then for me, I want to be a champion for more than myself. I want to encourage people to have their moments of championship, to celebrate their wins. And if I can do that through broadcasting, through speaking, through being a parent, you know, every day I'm winning. Amazing. Amazing. I mean, just building, building your win around your life and your life around your win. And all of that is framed in this book, Mindset for Mastery. The key points are, it's amazing. If you live your life by the key points in this book, it's so satisfying.

It is. It's incredible. I mean, just sitting here with you across the table, talking through these podcast microphones and enjoying each other's presence, I'm blown away. I mean, I am totally inspired by your story, by how you've taken these failures, you've worked them through your life, through this mindset, this self-talk, this affirmation, and the hard work, and like you said, the details. Details. And built some amazing wins. So I'm very grateful for having you on the podcast today.

Thanks for having me, man. And look at this view, man. Even though it's kind of overcast over here, but we got, for those listening, we got a sunny, sunny view of some foggy, foggy snow coming down, but just a beautiful height up here to see the city. A lot to be grateful for. A lot to be grateful for, man. Where can we find your book?

Amazon.com. You can find the book if you're here in town. The Tattered Cover is going to start picking it up in Denver. But it's a fantastic, fantastic book for you to move through your obstacles and choose your mindset. We choose our mindset every day. Choose yours and win. When did this come out? So this, Mindset for Mastery, came out February 6th. It was number

one bestseller on Amazon, something I'm really proud of in terms of just, you know, 78% of football players in the NFL are bankrupt and either chemically dependent or divorced or all three two years after they're done playing. So for me to stay active, get into broadcasting, get into speaking. Also one of the things with athletes, people don't think we ever fail. Just like I'm sure for you, people never think you failed, you know, that you just were always hitting it, you know, and even the supply company you talked about, you closed it down. Yeah. You know what I mean? And tried things, didn't work. And so I really, you know, I'd say all the time, we talk about failure less than we talk about sex. And less than that, we give each other, well, how did you work out of it, right? So I really wanted to write a book to encourage young athletes, to encourage professionals,

anybody going through any obstacle, facing any obstacles, showing the tools that I used to become a champion in my ninth year in the NFL, and how I persevered through nine different surgeries, 10 seasons, four different teams, 18 moves in five years, having two kids. And so just kind of let people know like, hey, the common thread in every success story is failure. Here's a story of success and here are the failures. Here's how I got out of them. And hopefully you can take something with it. I like it. Ryan, thank you so much for being on Start With A Win. Ladies and gentlemen, an incredible episode today. I encourage you to check out Mindset for Mastery, this amazing book by Ryan Harris,

and we'll catch you next time. Don't forget, start with a win. Thank you so much for joining us today. Make sure to head over to startwithawin.com to get more great content. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Adam on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

And remember, start with a win.