The School of Greatness - 764 Embrace Your Struggle with Devon Still

Episode Date: February 27, 2019

IT'S OK TO NOT BE OK. So often we feel like we have to mask what we are going through. We hide our fears. We cover our scars. But the adversity you face makes you a stronger person. You’re not the only one who is battling something. The more vulnerable you can be about what you’re up against, the more other people will be able to support you. It’s going to take a team effort. Don’t let a weak moment become a weak mindset. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk with a former NFL player who is now tackling childhood cancer: Devon Still. Devon Still is a professional athlete, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and advocate for childhood cancer awareness. He is also a former Houston Texan’s defensive end, a former Cincinnati Bengals’ defensive tackle, Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, and a Penn State University All-American. Perhaps most importantly, he is Leah’s dad, helping her publicly “beat up cancer” and embarking on a pediatric cancer-fighting journey. Devon shared that once he opened up about his daughter’s battle with cancer, the more love and connection he felt. He now wants everyone to be vulnerable about the storms they are facing. He also knows the importance of having fun along the way. So get ready to learn Devon’s lessons from the football field and life on Episode 764. Some Questions I Ask: What were the biggest lessons Joe Paterno taught you? (8:00) How have you been able to reinvent yourself after football? (30:00) What’s your mission moving forward? (33:00) What’s your dream for your daughter in the next 15 years? (46:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: What it was like playing for Penn State during the Sandusky Trial (3:00) The importance of visualizing your dreams (12:00) About Devon’s daughter’s battle with cancer (14:00) The biggest lesson Devon learned from football (23:00) Why it’s important to be vulnerable (40:00) How to appreciate the struggles life gives you (47:00)

This is episode number 764 with Devin Still. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Joseph Campbell said, we must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. Have you ever been through an experience where you had a dream,

you had an expectation for your life to go one way in a relationship, maybe supposed to work out a career, a dream that was supposed to work out. And then all of a sudden it doesn't work out. But later you reflect back and you realize, wow, I'm so glad it never worked out. So this new life did work out. Well, that's part of the story with Devin Still. For those who don't know, he is a former NFL football player, defensive end, was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the second round in the 2012 NFL draft. He played college at Penn State where he was an All-American.

He's also a member of the Houston Texans and the New York Jets. And in this interview, we talk about what it was like to be the captain of the football team at Penn State during a major controversy where his coach, Joe Paterno, went through incredible criticism in the media, and it was all over the world, and how he was the one who had to step up to rally the team to finish the season.

All the different ins and outs of that moment, what that was like. Also talk about Devin's life and how it completely changed after his four-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer. How he learned how to deal with cancer for his child as a new father. We talk about his career in the NFL and how it was impacted his mindset on and off the field. And we discuss vulnerability through the power of owning your scars instead of hiding what you've been through. Guys, this is a powerful one. Devin is a great guy. Make sure to share this with your friends. You're going to learn a lot. You're going to be inspired. lewishouse.com slash 764 for the link to share with your friends.

All right, guys, big thank you again to our sponsor. I'm so excited about this episode. Without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only, Devin Still. Welcome, everyone, back to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Devin still in the house. My man. Good to see you, brother. I appreciate you being here.

You've got a new book out called Still in the Game. Finding the Faith to Tackle Life's Biggest Challenges. And you've been through a few big challenges in the last, I guess, eight years. One, you were the captain at Penn State. This is crazy. You were the captain at Penn State. Superstar there. During the whole Paterno your coach was you know going through madness and I can only imagine what that would have been like I remember watching the doctor the movie with what's the name HBO?

Yeah, you know series and I was like this is crazy and it was probably even more crazy being an athlete Mm-hmm while you're trying to play and all this is happening. Right. And you were the captain, so everyone's probably coming to you and being like, what do we do? What are the answers? Yeah. What do we do?

Do we, like, protest? Do we not play? Do we play? I mean, what was that like? It was tough. I felt like not only were the players really relying on me, but the whole coaching staff was. Just to be able to keep the team upbeat

and just keep them gelled together and focus on me, but the whole coaching staff was. Just to be able to keep the team upbeat and just keep them gelled together and focus on football. It was tough, but it was a responsibility I had as a captain when I decided to step up and lead the team. What was that like? I mean, did he recruit you? He did. It was interesting, right, because during this time Joe had just got injured, right? I guess somebody ran his hip. He's foot or something, right? Or his knee? Or his hip. He had broke his hip or something, fractured his hip during practice. So he wasn't traveling a lot.

And during my senior year in high school, he actually made the trip to my high school, but shut down my school. It was like no teachers were teaching, nobody went to class. And he came to visit me to show me how important it was for me to come to Penn State. And after he did that, it was like, it was a no brainer.

The legendary Joe Paterno can come to my high school in little old Delaware, then I definitely have to go to Penn State. And after he did that, it was like, it was a no-brainer. If the legendary Joe Paterno can come to my high school in little old Delaware, then I definitely have to go to Penn State. With a busted hip. Exactly. With his little cane. Wow.

Yep. So he came and he watched you at practice or he just came and... He just came and met with me, my family, and my coach inside the school office.

And you were there for four years. You didn't register. You played right away pretty much. Well, I was supposed to play right away, but then I ended up tearing my ACL in training camp

So I had to register my first job. Yeah. What was he like for those five years then? He was an amazing person to be honest with you A lot of people thought that he was getting old and he wasn't Really a part of the program as much like calling the plays and stuff But he was very heavily involved in knowledge that he had You know as an 80 year old was just it was impeccable to see the way that he was very heavily involved. The knowledge that he had, you know, as an 80-year-old was just, it was impeccable to see the way that he was still able to maneuver. He'd probably seen so much.

I mean, coach, for how long? 50-something years? 60. 60 years. I mean, you get so good at something. Talk about 10,000 hours. I got it like 500,000 hours. Exactly.

He was probably just so, he'd seen every instance. He'd seen so much. Like, he didn't even have to see how the beginning of a play unfolded. All he had to do was see the end and see what you did wrong in the beginning. His football IQ was ridiculous. Ridiculous. And you felt like he was a great coach for those four or five years for you? For me, because I think he brought a lot of structure to the program.

You hear a lot of coaches that say it's important to be a student athlete, right? But he really embodied that, right? He really put a lot of focus on making sure that his players were the best students they can possibly be, which shows in the graduation rate that we had at Penn State, but also teaching us certain values to allow us to be better men than just football players. Now, when the whole scandal came out about, because it was the assistant coach, what's the name, Jerry? Sandusky.

And was he an assistant coach? Not while I was there. When he was at Penn State, I believe he was the defensive coordinator up until the 2000 year, and then he had stepped away from the program. And I may have seen him two or three times working out in the weight room while I was there, but he wasn't a guy that really talked too much. He seemed a little bit weird, but I didn't really understand exactly the things and the pain that he really brought families during that time.

Wow. And so when the news came out, he wasn't really working there then. No. When the news came out, there was a lot of pressure on Joe, right? And it was in the middle of the season, wasn't it? Like in the middle? It was towards the end, so it was around November. It was right before our senior night that the news had broke.

Gosh. The crazy thing is that Joe called a squad meeting, and he told the team that some news was going to come out. But just try to stay focused. That was always his thing. Just stay focused, take care of the classroom, take care of the football. When we go to practice, we'll handle the rest. So we left that meeting. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I remember just sitting in my living room on my off-campus apartment, and they announced that Jerry Sanguski was caught for all the things that he had did, and it just blew my mind completely because I wasn't expecting to hear anything like that.

That type of news. Oh, yeah. I wasn't expecting. I don't think anybody was. Why? Wow. And so it was right before senior night. Right.

What happened after that? He went and coached that game, right? No. So the next day we had another squad meeting, and Joe let us know everything that was going on. And he said that he was going to finish out the season because they was asking for him to step down. That quick? Yeah, it was that quick. And he told us that he was going to finish out the season and he was going to retire after the season. But what I remember is that

squad meeting, he did something I'll never forget when he always stands in the front of the room at his podium. And then when he's finished the meeting, he turns to his left and he goes to walk out the double doors that we have in the front of the squad meeting. And as soon as he got to those double doors, he stopped and he just looked back at all of us when his eyes just started watering up. And to me, that wasn't a sign of somebody who was going to finish out the season. That was somebody who knew that it was coming to an end real soon. And when he walked out that door, that was the last time he was the head of our team. Wow.

So he didn't coach, practice, and then that next game, and then he was done for the season. He was done. Didn't he die soon after the season? So what happened was he got fired right before our senior night so they promoted our defensive coordinator to be the head coach at the time. When I graduated and I went on to train for the combine when I was down in Florida I got the news that Coach Paterno had passed away which I thought was going to happen anyway because he lived and breathed football and when you take away somebody's reason for living what do you have to live for so it wasn't

a shock that what happened to him wow did you talk to him after all this stuff occurred no I didn't because it was such a media circus it was so much going on with him and his family that I felt like that was a time for him to be around his family and figure out what was going on. The last time I talked to him was when the last time I saw him. Really? That was the last time you saw him, last time you talked to him. A few months later, he was gone.

What was the biggest lessons that he taught you that were really valuable for you? I guess the biggest one, because people always ask me as a Penn State, how do you feel about Joe Paterno being fired? And I honestly feel like the way that they fired him was wrong. When somebody gives 60 years of their life to a program and really helps change the way people looked at Penn State, you don't fire them over the phone, regardless of what has transpired. You bring them in and meet with them face to face and let them know what was going on. So for them to fire him over the phone, I think was very disrespectful. But one of the things that Joe taught us is that as a leader, you have to be willing to take the credit, whether

it's good or bad, for the actions that the people underneath you take. And this happened underneath his watch. So I'm pretty sure he understands that he has to take the responsibility for that. And he could not go on coaching that program. It would have been ridiculous if he did because as a father, the amount of pain that was brought to those children and to those families, it's ridiculous. And somebody has to be held accountable for that. Wow.

How do you view him today? Because I know who he is, right? I know the type of person he is. I know the values he holds, but I honestly feel like there should have been more done. I feel like as adults, we have to do everything we can to protect our children. Whether you reported what was going on or not, if you saw that nobody took any action, then you need to make sure that somebody takes action to protect our kids. Right. So do you feel like he was in the wrong the whole time and knew about this and wasn't willing to address it or just try to sweep it on the rug?

It's so crazy because you hear a lot of mixed stories. I'm not sure what exactly Joe knew, but I feel as though the information he came out and said he knew, you have to do more. You have to do more to protect our children. That's the number one thing. It's not football. It's not to protect the integrity of the university. It's to protect our children. So with the information I know that he had, he should have done more. He should have done more. What was the biggest lesson you learned about yourself being at Penn State during that time? What did it teach you about being a better father or a human being?

A lot happened during my time at Penn State. Actually, I was one of the biggest recruits coming out of high school. I've had over 50 scholarships to go play football at pretty much every Division I school there was in the country. But when I got to Penn State, I faced two huge obstacles. My freshman year, I ended up tearing my ACL, my MCL, and that ended my whole year for my freshman year. And it was really deflating. But I fought my way back from that.

In a year's worth of rehab, I ended up making it back to the football field, the next training camp. Then I ended up breaking my leg in that training camp. And that's when I really hit a dark spot in my life where I just felt like my dreams of making it to the NFL was out of reach. That I probably wouldn't make it back to the football field because this is what people were telling me. This is what the doctors were telling me. This is what players who have seen these type of injuries was telling me, that people don't make it back from these type of injuries. But what I think helped me through those times is when I first decided that I wanted to make it to the NFL, I visualized it so strongly. It was so

vivid, my dreams of making it to the NFL. I felt the feeling that I would get making it to the NFL so intensely so that when these obstacles and adversities were thrown in my way, the feeling I got from making it to the NFL, the visualization was so strong that it was stronger than any excuse I could have made for myself to give up. So that really taught me the importance of visualizing your dreams and making sure that you sacrifice or go through whatever you need to go through to make your dreams come true. Then of course, my daughter was born my junior year in college, which really gave me that added motivation because I said to myself, I'm in so much pain right now from all the injuries I'm facing. I'm in so much pain for feeling like my dreams of making it to the NFL is over. But I understood the type of environment I grew up in. I came from Wilmington, Delaware, which is an environment stricken with drugs and violence. It's pretty heavy there. And there's a lot of times where I was with people one night and then the next night we're wearing their faces on shirts to funerals, right? And I needed to make sure that whatever I did, I needed to provide a better life for my daughter than I had for myself.

So having her, I think, gave me the extra motivation. It made me understand there was no turning around regardless of what I go through because my daughter could not live in the same environment I grew up in. Wow. Now, is your daughter's mom, it's not your wife, right? No, no. Someone you met at Penn State? No, it's actually somebody I met in high school.

So I met her my senior year in high school. Okay, cool. And things just didn't work out with you guys? It wasn't the right fit? It wasn't the right time? No, I think it was just, I was immature. She was immature.

We was kids being kids, and we had a kid. And, you know, we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. And I felt like the best thing for us was to go our separate ways because if we created this toxic environment for Leah, it wouldn't be good on her outcome. It wouldn't be good for her well-being.

So we decided to go our separate ways. Is the mother in Houston? No, she lives in Florida. Florida? Okay. But your daughter's with you most of the time? Yeah, she just, this is her first year living with me in Houston, which has been pretty cool.

No more weekend daddies. Everyday daddy. It's a lot of responsibility, but I enjoy it so much, especially because Leah had stage four cancer. So there was a time in my life where I didn't know how much time I had with her. You know, I didn't know

if I was going to be able to experience all the things that dads are able to experience watching their kids grow up. So to have her every single day, I put her in sports for the first time after she asked me because she plays soccer.

It's just been amazing to be able to wake up to her and go to sleep by tugging her into the bed. That's pretty cool, man. And so when she was four, you guys got the word that she had cancer.

How did you guys find out about this? So I put Leah into dance class during the offseason, and I had to go back out to Cincinnati because we were living in Delaware for OTAs, and her big dance recital was coming up. So I had asked Coach Lewis if I could leave OTAs to go back and support my daughter because that's something my parents always did for me. They was divorced. they had their issues, but every time I looked up in the stands at my games they were sitting right next to each other to support me.

Right next to each other. Both of them? Divorced? Yeah, divorced. It was pretty crazy to see. They weren't on the other side of the field? No, right next to each other. So I knew how much that meant for me to be able to look in the stands and see my parents

there supporting me. So I needed to make sure I was there at my daughter's dance recital. So I went back home, and she went out to breakfast with her maternal grandmother that morning at IHOP. And I remember driving. I went back, and I stayed with my then-girlfriend

at her house. And she worked at the mall that was right next to the IHOP that Leah had went to breakfast to. So I went to go drop my wife off at her job. And as I was going home, I passed the IHOP and I'm sitting at a red light and I get a phone call. And it's Leah's grandmother. She's telling me that Leah is not eating her food. She's acting very lethargic that I needed to set up a doctor's appointment to find out what's going on with her.

So I was going to wait until I got home to call her pediatrician and set up an appointment. But when I was sitting at the red light, something told me that I needed to act now. So I asked her where they were at, and she said they were at IHOP. You were right there. Right across the street from IHOP. Wow. So I made the U-turn, and I pulled into the parking lot. When I walked into the restaurant, Leah was there sitting with her head down on the table. And when I was talking to her, she wasn't really responding.

She was looking at me, but she wasn't responding. She had a really high fever when I touched her head. So I took her across the street to the urgent care and I let them know what was going on, hoping that they were going to tell me it was an ear infection or something. A virus. Yeah, I didn't think it was an ear infection or something. A virus. Yeah, I didn't think it was something serious, but they didn't find anything wrong. So I started to tell them about leg pain that Leah had been complaining about for some months, but I thought it was because of gymnastics, her falling off the balance beam. And she only complained about it when I told her to clean up her room. She'd be like, how I can? My leg hurt.

So I didn't think it was anything serious. They touched her hip, and she jumped from the doctor. And the doctor had told us that it could be probably a hip infection for her, you know, growing too big. And since I'm not the smallest kind of woman, I thought that was it. So they sent us to the children's hospital about a half a mile down the street, and they ran some blood work on her. They came into the room and told us it can be about 10 different things. And the street and they ran some blood work on her. They came into the room and told us it can be about 10 different things. And the last thing they said was cancer. So I'm like, it can't be cancer because you probably would have said that first. But after giving her ultrasound, they found a tumor in her stomach. And then hours of more testing, we ended up finding

out that she had cancer. That day you found out? That day. Wow. So they found a tumor in her stomach? Right, up in her abdomen. Dang. How does this happen to kids so young? I have no idea. I have no idea. They said it wasn't genetic, right? And because she had neuroblastoma, which is a nerve tissue form of cancer that's usually found on your adrenal gland, there's no signs that you can catch it early on. Normally kids are diagnosed at stage four. So I'm not sure how this happens to kids, but hopefully if we continue to raise awareness, continue to raise money for research, one day we'll find out so families don't have to experience the pain that me and so many other families experience.

And stage four is the worst. Is there stage five right now? Stage four is the worst. Is there stage five or no? Stage four is the last stage. So you caught it at stage four, which if you wouldn't have caught it, how much longer would she have to live, essentially? What were they saying? I know when we,

I'm not sure how long she would have had. I'm glad that I didn't have to find that out. But when we found out, she had a 50% chance of beating the disease. Wow, just beating it by taking the chemo and the therapy. And you've been, the next year, two years, you guys were in the hospital. I mean, I remember this because you were on the ESPYs, right? Like four years, three, four years ago. 2015, I believe.

Yeah. Three and a half years ago, you gave a speech and she was there. I believe she was there with you. She just got done her stem cell transplant. so her white blood count was so low that she wasn't allowed to travel around people. But you gave an amazing speech for the Jimmy V. Yeah, Jimmy V. Award for perseverance. And so what was that like from the moment you heard that she had cancer? And how much longer was it until she went through her journey? It was a year and a half until she started the treatment, until she finished.

And it was tough. Every day, three days a week? So she would go in for five days, and she would get out if everything went well. Her A and C rose, which is basically the amount of white blood cells that are able to fight off any type of infection. So we're usually being there for about five days. We'll get a 21-day break, and then she'll go back in for another five days. But it was a roller coaster because I didn't know anything about this world, right? So when the doctors are speaking to me, I feel like they're speaking to me in a foreign language.

So I had to do so much research in a short amount of time to try to catch myself up to speed to the terminology that these doctors were using. to try to catch myself up to speed to the terminology that these doctors were using. And they had just came out with a new clinical trial for kids who had this type of cancer, which was called an MIBG, which is a radiation type of treatment where the radiation, you put radiation into the kid's body and it localizes, so it finds the cancer cells in the body. So it's not the whole body. Right. It attacks the specific areas that have the cancer cells.

So they thought that this was going to be the treatment that was going to cure Leah. And so did I. So we started off with a couple of months of high-dose chemo. And then we gave her the MIBG radiation, which was the craziest experience I ever saw in my life. Because they put you in this room that's covered with complete plastic, right? And there's metal doors separating from you in the outside world. So nobody was allowed to go into the room

with Leah for five days. Five days? Five days. By herself? By herself. No way. By herself. And then doctors would go in

with the suits that astronauts wear so that they wouldn't get any contact with the radiation. So it was crazy not to be able to just hug her and let her know it was going to be okay because she had to be in there by herself. How old was she? She was four. Holy cow.

What did she... Thank God for iPads because it kept her attention. So you could talk to her on FaceTime or something? FaceTime, yeah. So she had an iPad that just took all her attention. That's it? Yeah. She just watched movies all day, sat by herself for five days.

She was strong. Holy cow. Yeah, she was strong. Were you just like watching her in another room? So they had a little bench outside the room, and there was a little square door inside the metal door where we would be able to look in and see what she was doing. Could she see you guys? Could you like wave at each other? Wow, man.

That's intense it was crazy holy cow that much radiation yeah what does that do to someone's body when they have that much radiation straight damage the amount of chemo that they put inside your body the amount of radiation is so much toxic that you're killing other organs while trying to kill the cancer cells. Can your body recover, though? Can your organs recover years after? Not completely. Leah still has issues that she's dealing with from the amount of chemo that she got and the radiation.

So you're going to have lasting effects way past, you know, the day that you go into remission. Wow. But the goal is hopefully that the body will recover at some and heal itself eventually enough? I mean, for me, to be honest, the goal was just to the body will recover and heal itself eventually enough. I mean, for me, to be honest with you, the goal was just to make sure that my daughter was alive. Yeah. Like, whatever we had to deal with, the ramifications of that type of treatment we were going to deal with,

but the main goal was to do everything possible to make sure my daughter was alive. Yeah. To be alive and have some issues and not last a while. and have some issues and not last a while. I want to take a moment from this interview and talk to you about Organifi Gold. Organifi Gold is the answer to better sleep. You know how much I care about my body, my health, and optimizing my performance in life?

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Oh, my gosh. That it had went from her hip to her shoulders, her chest, her neck, her skull. And that was probably the real moment when I came to the realization that I'm probably going to lose my daughter. Oh, my gosh. I really had to have that talk with myself about what my life would be without her. And when I say this, it's not a joke. This is not something you see in the movies. But there were times where this was playing so many tricks on my mind that I could literally be looking at a family picture and my daughter would fade out the picture.

Wow. This is when I knew that something was going wrong in my head because my daughter would literally fade out of pictures. But thank God, just from playing football, there were certain lessons that I learned. And the first thing they teach us when we play sports is it doesn't matter what the scoreboard says. You give it everything you have, no matter how tired you are, no matter how much pain you're in. You go until there's no more time on the clock. So although the cancer has spread all over my body, I looked at my daughter and I told her that we still have time left. We still have other options. And we're not giving up until they bury me or they bury you. But we're going to keep going at this, right? We're going to fight for four quarters. So they ended up coming out with a new treatment that we put her in.

The scary thing about this treatment was we couldn't choose what treatment she went into. All we can say is that, yes, we want her to be a part of the new clinical trial. And then the computer would randomly pick a treatment for her, which is RM-A or RM-B. Thank God the computer picked the right treatment because my daughter wouldn't be here today. Wow. Because a couple of months after that, she ended up going into remission.

Really? Yeah, just a couple of months after, spreading all over the place. So she did the treatment for a couple of months, and it worked? It worked. Wow. And it's been four years now?

Four years. So you need to be five years until... Five years until we can be declared cancer-free, but we live our life Like she's cancer-free already Wow, man, what does that like then when you see her photo fade away images of her when you're you know It feels like time's running out It's scary because I still have a job to do I still still have to play football. You were playing in the NFL. Yeah, I was in the NFL. And I did not know how to balance all of this.

When the story broke, a lot of people thought that I had got released because I wasn't performing at a good level. And they did just sign me back, put me on the practice squad for insurance. But I talk about it in my book. That's not true. I actually was told that I was playing the best out of all the defensive linemen. But because I was in Cincinnati and Leah was in Philadelphia, there were so many times where I just wanted to be with my daughter to hug her and let her know it was going to be okay because I was watching her change over FaceTime. I was

watching her lose weight. I was watching her eyebrows fall off, being hooked up to all these different machines. And as a father, I couldn't hug her and kiss I was watching her eyebrows fall off, being hooked up to all these different machines. And as a father, I couldn't hug her and kiss her to let her know it was going to be okay. So there were times where I would just walk out of meetings because tears would just start flowing down my eyes as we're watching film or we'll be at practice. And I have a 300-pound man in front of me, maybe two men, that's trying to block me and just blow me out the water. And I have tears rolling down my eyes because I'm not even focused on practice. I'm focused on my daughter. And one time when I walked out of a meeting and I was sitting in a hallway crying, the GM saw me. He knew I was

supposed to be in the meeting. I knew that by him seeing me not in the meeting, it was going to be bad. And that's when I knew that I was probably going to be released because when you're playing at this level, you have to dedicate 100% of your time to this game or else you're just not going to do good. So struggling with that was just the hardest thing I ever had to figure out how to do in my life. How many years did you play? Three years, two years?

No, five years. Five years in the league? And do you feel like you also started to get some injuries too, isn't that right, or no? So this is the crazy thing, is my second year, I'm having a bigger role on the team. I'm playing really well. In Cincinnati.

Yep. I dislocated my elbow against the lines, right? So I have to fight my way back five weeks from that injury, and I make it back to play San Diego. I did okay. The next game, we played the Steelers, and I blew my back out, and I ended up having to get back surgery, so I was done for the season. I ended up flying home to Philadelphia to be with my daughter,

and I got rushed to the hospital with blood clots in my lungs, and they told me if I didn't make it to the hospital when I did, then I probably wouldn't be alive. So all this started happening, right? And I just knew that my life was not going right, that my life felt like it was falling apart. And my wife talked me into getting back into church because I never really went to church. I didn't have a strong foundation in church, but she just felt like I could find some guidance there. So we went to church. A couple of months later, we get baptized, right?

We give our lives to God. We think that our lives are gonna turn around for the better. Two months later, Leah gets diagnosed with cancer. Oh, man. And this all happened within an eight-month timeframe. So I just felt like my world was falling apart. Wow. After that, did you stop playing?

No, so 2014, I had got released, got picked back up on the practice squad. Then a week later, I got put back on the active roster. So I played out that season. After you had the back surgery and everything else? Yeah, I made it back. Wow. And then 2015, I didn't play that year. I stayed in Philadelphia with my daughter to help her finish the treatment.

And then I made it back from that and got signed with the Texans. Wow. And then one year with them or? Third game of the season. Third game of the season? Foot surgery. Yeah. And now you're in a boot getting this off soon.

Exactly. Second surgery, right? Exactly, yeah. That was 2015? Yeah. Man, so that was the end. Yeah, I made it back from that because I wanted to prove to myself that an injury wasn't going to stop me from living my dream. So I made it back from that foot injury with the Jets.

But it was like after every training camp practice, when I went back to my room, I felt like I wanted to cut my foot off. Like I was in that much pain. Oh, man. I felt like I wanted to cut my foot off. Like I was in that much pain. I felt like I wanted to cut my foot off. And I realized at that moment that it was probably time for me to hang it up because I didn't want to impact my future well-being outside of football when I get older. I still wanted to be able to go out with my kids and play with them in the backyard. And I wasn't willing to sacrifice that for my dreams of playing in the NFL. Man, do you miss it at all?

Yeah, I do, to be honest with you. But I think that we can miss things in life and not want it back. And I'm not sure if I really miss playing the game or do I miss the routine, right, of always having something to do with being in the locker room with your teammates or, you know, being out on the practice field or lifting weights with them. I'm not sure if that's what I really miss or just playing the game. And to be honest with you, I feel like I never got to enjoy playing in the NFL. I worked so hard to get there, but I never got to enjoy it because of injuries, because of my daughter's battle with cancer. So it's tough. It's tough. Since I've been

playing since I was 13. And I tell everybody it's like a relationship, right? When you dedicate so much time and effort into the relationship and you never reach that level of marriage. And then you have to start all over getting to learn somebody new. It's tough. And it's the same thing when you dedicate 13 years of your life to a career and then all of a sudden it's over and it's what now? Yeah. What now? Did you feel like your identity was... It's tied up in sports. Yeah. Yeah. Because everybody says, oh, that's the NFL player.

That's the football player. Now I'm not the football player. So it was important for me to sit down and find out who exactly I really am. And I think that the great thing about me is I've always been level-headed. I knew I wasn't a football player. I played football. And right before I got drafted I remember Oprah saying something that completely changed my life And she said if you don't know who you are before the money and fame comes and you'll never know who you are So I made sure that I knew who I was as a man before I made it to the NFL so that I didn't allow You know that identity of being an NFL player to consume me completely

Wow you know that identity of being an NFL player to consume me completely. Wow. How have you been able to reinvent yourself and your identity through the last few years? So it's just taking the lessons that I learned from football. You hear people say all the time that it's the journey not the destination. And it's completely true because I look at it as climbing a mountain. See the first mountain you climb is going to be extremely hard because you don't know what you're doing. You don't know the tools you need. You don't know the obstacles you're going to face. But when you get to that top of the mountain, sometimes the view is what you think it is going to be or sometimes it's not. And you have to start all over and climb a new mountain.

But the second mountain you climb, you're more well-equipped to climb this mountain because you understand what it takes in order to get to the top. And for me, that's what I'm doing now, taking the same mindset that I took to become part of the 1% of athletes that ever make it to the NFL to now create a new identity for myself and become the top in the world that I'm in now. Yeah, man. Wow. Oh, man. What do you feel like was the biggest lesson for you from football

that you've used to translate into this new world? Besides having the mindset and things we've talked about already, but what's... Because you went through so much in college and NFL, so much adversity. I mean, college seems like it was the craziest adversity ever, at least your senior year, but you also had injuries the first couple of years. And then the NFL, five years of injury over and over

Again, you never really got to enjoy it It sounds like you never got to enjoy much of football except for maybe in high school your senior year when you were like a man Right. Yeah that these schools were trying to recruit you over. That's why your highlight. Mm-hmm a football Mm-hmm. The most fun you have is probably when you're 18, right? That's true Yes, man. How did you say it like that, it's true. I think the best lesson that football has probably ever taught me

was that it's not over until it's over. What I said earlier about fighting until the clock hits zero, because there's a lot of obstacles that we're going to face in our lives, whether it's on a football field or basketball court or just in life in general and if you're not really willing to fight and give it everything you have is as long as you're alive then what are you really doing it for right and i feel like that's has that's helped me with my success in football it's helped me with

leah beating cancer and it's going to help me whatever i try to do in the future what's your mission moving forward right now is definitely to get my winning playbook out to people all over the world and teach them the lessons that I've learned to help me get to where I'm at today, whether it's through a book, whether it's through speaking engagements, my podcast, Instagram. Right now, my main objective is to put as much positivity into this world and let them know that, let people know that whatever struggle you're facing, it's possible to overcome. Yeah. What are some of the keys from the winning playbook?

Man, it's so much in there. And probably the best thing is what I have on the back cover, which is to be proud of your scars. Yeah, I like that. Because a lot of people look at their scars as a bad thing. A lot of people try to hide the pain that they're in, but I believe that your scars really show that you overcame whatever tried to break you. The reason why I put that on the book was the night before Leah's seven-hour surgery,

we're sitting in a hotel room and she looks scared to death of the surgery that she's about to have. I go to sit on the bed with her and I just start talking to her. She start asking me questions like, dad, are they going to cut me open? How big are my scars going to be? Is it going to be there forever? I started to just pull up my pants leg and show her the scars from my surgery. Show her my scars from my back surgery and let her know, look, daddy been through this

too. It's not to the same extent that you're about to go through, but I have scars from the surgeries I've been through. Because I'm able to sit here and show you them and tell you them, that means they're my warrior wounds. That means that whatever tried to break me, I overcame it because I'm here and I'm able to talk about it. So don't look at your scar as a bad thing.

Look at it as when you get older, you're going to have this scar on your stomach, on your chest from your Broviac catheter to show people, look, I had stage four cancer, but I overcame it. And I'm not afraid to or ashamed to show these scars because this means that I overcame something that tried to break me. So that's probably the biggest message in that book is just to be proud of whatever you went through. It doesn't have to be physical scars. A lot of people go through mental scars. A scar is a scar. But if you're still here to be able to talk about it, that means you overcame something.

So be proud of it. Yeah, I think it's hard to trust someone who has no scars. Yeah. It's really hard to trust someone, believe in someone, if they've never faced some type of extreme adversity. Whether mental, emotional, physical, whatever it may be. I think that's when you really learn about someone, when they face a challenge. Definitely. You've faced a lot of them, man. That's crazy. What's another winning lesson for you? Something that you really talk about a lot, and it's just being vulnerable,

allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Because writing this book was very stressful because you had to relive certain moments of your life that you don't want to relive. But it was also therapeutic in meaning I was able to learn a lot of things, not only about myself, but about my daughter. So I told you earlier about how I used to be on FaceTime with her and want to break down because I couldn't hug her and let her know it was going to be okay. because I couldn't hug her and let her know it was going to be okay. But when we were on FaceTime, I would hold it together, and I would cry when we hung up the phone because I didn't want my daughter to see me crying because as a man, I felt like we had to be strong.

You know, we have to be that rock. As a football player, we're taught that warrior mentality that you can't let your opponents deceive you being weak. So I took that approach with my daughter. Do you feel like it was hurtful or helpful? It was hurtful. It was hurtful. She never got to see you sensitive or emotional. Exactly. Like a lot of people come to me or write me on Instagram talking about how I'm a great parent, that I'm really a role model for parents. And although I appreciate that, I'm still learning

how to be a parent. And I really dropped the ball when Leah was battling cancer because I wasn't vulnerable enough. So when I was writing this book and I told her about how I would get off the phone and cry, she said, Dad, I was doing the same thing. That when we hung up the phone, I would go in the bathroom in the hospital and I would cry because I wanted you to be here so bad.

Wow. And you wasn't. And I realized that I had dropped the ball because if I would have allowed myself to be vulnerable and showed her how bad it was hurting me, that I wasn't there, maybe we could have shared those moments crying on the phone together and letting her know that it was okay because I'm teaching her by doing this without knowing that you have to hide your pain, right? And what I really believe is that it's okay to not be okay.

And I dropped the ball in teaching my daughter that lesson during that time. But since we wrote this book, I was able to learn that. So now I cry in front of Leah whenever I want to, and we'll just cry together. Wow. It's something I had learned during this experience. How old is she now? Eight. Eight. So you cry more often around her now. Oh, yeah, I let it go

Really? What are the moments that make you want to cry? It's interesting because it's a lot of things that I'm not able to handle that my daughter says now that she's Older and she's able to express herself about this journey So we're shooting a vlog for our YouTube, and while we're shooting this video, Leah says to the camera that she's scared because she doesn't want to lose her life, right? Because just because she's in four years in remission

doesn't mean that we're out of the fight, that she has one of the high, she has high-risk neuroblastoma, which means a lot of kids relapse from it. And when she said that, I almost broke down and cried. I didn't know what to say, to be honest with you. Because as an eight-year-old, there's no way that you should be focused on losing your life, right? And normally I would just keep that to myself and just move on with it and not let Leah know the type of pain I was in when she said that or what was

going through my mind. So I took her to my room and I just opened up and let her know, you know, how I was feeling because we had a big day of testing ahead of us because the doctors thought that the cancer might be coming back. So I let her know that I was scared, right, that I was nervous about the upcoming date. And she opened up and she told me she was too. But we told each other that regardless what happens, we're going to be ready to fight. We already beat this one time. We'll beat it again. And now that we had this talk, we're not even going to be nervous no more.

Now that we spoke about it, we let it out. We understand the mindset that both of us have. Whenever we get in this frame of mind, we're going to think positive and try to get ourselves out of this bad thoughts that we're having. Yeah, as opposed to living in fear, you talk about the fear. Right. You share it, you express it, and then it's not as scary anymore. Yeah, exactly. It's scary when you bottle it up and you have to deal with it on your own.

Yeah. When you know other people are experiencing that emotion, knowing that you're not alone is probably the biggest relief that anybody can have because a lot of people feel like they're just fighting battles on their own. When I saw the way that our story of Leah battling cancer touched people, it showed people that, yo, you're not the only person that's battling cancer. You're not the only person who's scared that you might lose your child. I'm going through it too, but we can go through this together now that we know we're not the only people fighting it. What advice do you have to parents, both fathers and mothers of young kids who are going through

some type of extreme adversity, whether it's cancer or a sickness, an illness, an injury? Right. What advice do you have for them from the lessons you've learned now? The first one would definitely be to allow yourself to be vulnerable, right? Second is don't blame yourself. The first thing I did when Leah got cancer was, how was this my fault? What did I do wrong? Why did I allow her to eat certain foods? Why didn't I see any signs earlier, right? I just started blaming myself for what my daughter was going through. And something she said to me early on didn't help. Because when I first took her to the hospital, they was poking her with all these needles for testing.

And I remember it was probably the second day in the hospital. She just looks at me with a room full of doctors and family. And she goes, Dad, this is all your fault. And it ripped me apart. It ripped me apart. fault. And it ripped me apart. It ripped me apart. And I just had to walk out the room and get my mind together because although I knew it wasn't my fault, I felt like it was my fault. But I realized that, you know, although I felt like I broke my promise that I made to her when she was first born, that I was going to do everything I could to protect

her, there was nothing I could do to protect her, but there was something I could do in that moment. And that was to allow her to know that she wasn't alone, that we were going to fight this battle together. So it would just be vulnerable and understand that it's not your fault and that you can make it through it. That it's going to take a team effort. There's going to be days where you feel like giving up. There's going to be days where you feel like you're weak and you don't want to push anymore. But allow yourself to have those weak moments. Don't allow it to turn into a weak mindset.

Because there was a lot of times where I wanted to give up, where I wanted to throw in the towel and say, man, enough is enough. I can't keep going through all these struggles that I'm going through. But I didn't let that moment turn into a mindset. And I decided I was going to continue to fight. Wow. I love that. Don't let the weak moment become a weak mindset. Yeah, exactly.

That's powerful. You can have the weak moments. Oh, yeah. But just don't let it ruin your life. Right. Or consume your mind forever. Right. But that's what I think vulnerability allows us to have a moment.

Okay. As opposed to trying to be tough and strong all the time. We can be vulnerable for a moment. Maybe a few moments or a few days or whatever, but then it's like we gotta get the mindset back on track. And that's what I think the fight gave me a different meaning to strength, because I really thought being strong

was to not show any signs of weakness, but now I feel like strength is showing people that you have your weak moments, because so many people are afraid to do it that it takes a strong person to say, look, I'm not okay. I'm not going to wear this mask to try to make you feel comfortable because a lot of ... Tell you this, it's interesting because I'm at an interview yesterday. I'm at an event and this lady walks up to me and she goes, I lost my daughter to cancer

five years ago. She was 24 years old. And then after that, I lost my mom and I lost my dad. Right. So I asked the lady, I was like, how are you handling all this stuff that you've been going through? She takes a deep breath and she looks down at the ground and then somebody runs over and says, oh, she's doing great. She's doing really great. And it starts rubbing her back. And the lady lifts up her head and says, you know what, I'm doing good. It's like, no, you're not. I saw the deep breath you took when I asked you that, and you was about to express what you were going through. But because this woman has walked up to you and told you you was doing great and didn't allow you to answer that on your own, you're now not going to open up about the things that you're facing. So now nobody can

help you. And it's like, so many people do that. So many people wear these masks acting like everything is okay to try to make other people more comfortable because you said you were great to make her more comfortable because she said you were great, not because you actually were great. And until we allow ourselves to open up, until we stop putting out into this world that you have to wear a mask and wear a smile when deep down inside you're falling apart, then a lot of people are going to be fighting battles that nobody knows anything about. So that's probably one of the biggest things I want people to get from this interview is to understand you don't have to always be okay. What do you and Leah talk about now? Everything, boys.

She's eight. She's eight and she just told me that she has her first crush. Shut up. Eight-year-old? Killed me. Come on. It killed me. But, you know, I had to put on a smile because I want to have that open communication, right?

I don't want to act like I'm angry that she told me that she has a crush. But then she started asking me if, you know, she can give him candy for Valentine's Day coming up. I'm like, yo, you're hurting my heart right now. I only can take but so much. You've been through a lot of pain already. Yeah, exactly. This is more painful than anything I went through, right? But it's just...

Oh, man. We talk about everything, because we have a very close relationship. We had it before she was diagnosed with cancer, and it only made us grow a stronger relationship. So just teaching her about life, because now kids are growing up in an environment where the Internet or YouTube

is teaching them so much about life, and if you don't get on top of things before the computer do, the computer's going to raise your kids. And I can't allow that to happen with my daughter. What's your dream for your daughter over the next 15, 20 years? And what's your dream for the next 15, 20 years? For my daughter, my dream for her is to make sure that she lives her dream,

to let her know that she's capable of doing whatever she puts her mind to. And I think that she's already proven that to herself with her battling cancer, letting her know that she's stronger than she ever thought she truly was. And if she takes that approach to anything that she sets out to do in life, then I'm pretty sure she'll accomplish it and I'll be right there supporting her and cheering her on. For me, my biggest dream right now is to just try to live in my purpose and teach people that no matter what you're going through, that you're still in the

game and you can just follow my struggles. I've been through so much in my life in a short amount of time, but I realized that those storms, every storm that I went through, it wasn't meant to break me, but it was meant to build me. That life wasn't always working against me. It was working for me because if I didn't go through the struggles I went through early on in life, I wouldn't have been able to cultivate the mindset that I had to help my daughter through her battle with cancer. So I can only imagine what the struggles of watching my daughter go through, the struggles of compared or combined with the struggles I went through, what that's preparing me for in the future. So I'm just excited to see where life takes me. Well, your book's out right now. It's called Still in the Game, Finding the Faith to Tackle

Life's Biggest Challenges. Make sure you guys pick this up. I've got a couple final questions for you, but where can we connect with you online? Where do you hang out the most? I hang out a lot on Instagram. You can find me at Still in the Game. I really built a pretty cool community where people are very open and really share the struggles that they're going through. And we just try to help each other, you know, through our struggles and motivate each other in order to overcome the obstacles we're facing. And I'm starting to have a bigger presence on YouTube, just getting more videos out there and just sharing the knowledge that I've been able to gather from all the struggles that I've been going through

and that's also Devin Still on YouTube. Devin Still on YouTube, Devin Still or still in the game on Instagram. It's at still in the game on Instagram. Okay, cool, make sure to follow you there. This is called the three truths. If this was your last day and you could share three final truths with the world,

lessons that you'd want the world to have, that you've learned over your whole life experience. And this is all people would have to remember you by. What would be those three lessons or three truths? Wow, that's a good question. Number one would be just to let people know that failing in life doesn't make you a failure. That's important for people to understand that you have to learn to accept failure, but never accept defeat. Because when you climb to the top, it's going to be a lot of failures you experience, right? But the people who are

successful understand that failures come with success and they don't allow those small failures to defeat them mentally or physically or spiritually. They continue to move forward. So number one is just learning to accept failure, but never accept defeat. The next one is just to understand that no matter what you're going through, it's important to always have fun. One of the lessons that I learned when I was playing little league football, and I played on a really good football team. We was having an undefeated season, but one game we were playing against the Bulldogs.

I remember this because it was hurting, but we was losing and everybody was walking around with their heads down, showing signs of defeat. I remember our coach pulling us up and he says, I want to tell y'all something. If there's one thing that I want you to learn from me is this, whenever you stop having fun, you already lost the game, right? And when he said that, it hit me even as a 13-year-old because I felt like he was talking more about life than he

was about football, that when you stop having fun with life, then it's over. And I recognized this when Leah first got diagnosed with cancer because I never left her bedside for two weeks when she first got diagnosed. One day I decided to leave and go back to my girlfriend's house and just get my mind right. And I was sitting on the couch and her roommate had a bunch of people over at her house and somebody told a joke and the whole room burst out in laughter. And I started sitting on the couch and her roommate had a bunch of people over at her house. And somebody told a joke. And the whole room burst out in laughter. And I started laughing. And within five seconds, my brain told me to stop laughing.

What did I think was so funny when I had my four-year-old daughter fighting death in the hospital? How could I be enjoying myself in this moment? But then I thought about that lesson that my little league coach taught me. moment. But then I thought about that lesson that my little league coach taught me. And I said, if I allow myself to keep this same mentality, there's no way in hell that my daughter is going to beat this disease. That I'm going to make sure we have fun regardless of the circumstances we're facing right now. That's why people saw me posting videos of us dancing when she didn't have no hair, I didn't have no hair, her painting my nails and me wearing wigs. I wanted to show her that we were going to have fun regardless of what we were going through.

So that would be number two is just don't allow your current circumstances to dictate the emotions that you feel in life. And the last one would be to fight for four quarters or overtime if you have to. Because I went through so much leading up to my career in the NFL. Three surgeries before I even made it to the NFL, five major injuries before I made it to the NFL, and two more surgeries once I got to the NFL, right? But the reason why I made it to

the NFL is because I continued to fight despite what I was facing. Even with Leah battling cancer, her first treatment didn't work. And we could have just gave up and thrown the towel once the cancer had spread all over her body. But we didn't. We kept fighting for four quarters and she ended up going to remission just three months after the cancer spread all over the place. remission just three months after the cancer spread all over the place. And even with that, I talk about how we almost lost her again a couple of months later when she was diagnosed with VOD, which is a disease in the liver from the high-dosage chemo. It damaged all the nerves inside of her liver, and a lot of kids pass away from that. But when that happened, I told Leah,

this is the definition of overtime. We thought we were out of the Wilwur's because you went into remission, but we didn't know we had another quarter that we had to fight. So right now we have to do everything we did in the first, second, third, and fourth quarter and do it in overtime because it's the people who are able to outlast the pain that they were going through who eventually win the game. The people who are able to push even harder than their opponents that win the game. So people just need to, when they have a dream for themselves, it's just to say to yourself, when you see this dream for yourself that you're going to fight for four quarters and overtime if you have to

and that you can't win the game of life from playing from the sideline. You can't wait for other people to come win this game for you. You have to have the courage to get off the sidelines and get back into the game of life from playing from the sideline. You can't wait for other people to come win this game for you. You have to have the courage to get off the sidelines and get back into the game. My man, I like that, man. I want to acknowledge you for a moment because I can only imagine what it'd be like being a father. First off, being a father and the stresses of having kids

and the joys, but also the challenges of being a father, going through your own emotional struggles, physical struggles, and the physical struggles, but also the challenges of being a father, going through your own emotional struggles, physical struggles, and the physical struggles of your daughter, and what that would be like. So I wanna acknowledge you for staying in the game of yourself, you know, allowing yourself to work through the emotions, the challenges, the adversity, and keep loving yourself

and loving your daughter the way you do. It's been a big inspiration for so many people around the world, man, and to do it with fun. I think it's really important you said that. Not many people say that their three truths is fun, but it's something I live by as well. It's just like, when I'm not having fun, it's like, it's hard to manifest your dreams.

When you're just serious all the time. You can have fun and still be focused. You know, you don't need to be serious and stressed. I think it's important to remember that we're here. We don't know when it's going to be over. It could be over in a moment. Let's enjoy the best of it. Let's enjoy the most of it.

I'm glad you shared that. I acknowledge you for everything, man. I'm really proud of everything you're up to. Make sure everyone gets this book, Still in the Game. Check it out right now. Follow Devin on Instagram, Still in the Game as well. Let him know what you thought of this interview. And the final question is, what's your definition of greatness? Wow. For me, I think my definition of greatness is just living in your truth.

Not living your life based on what other people think you should live your life like. Not doing things based off what other people tell you is possible or is not possible. Greatness is dedicating yourself to your life purpose and doing everything you can to make that come true. My man, Devin Still. Thanks, brother. Thank you. Appreciate you, man. And there you have it, my friends.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you are new here, please click on the subscribe button. If you are new here, please click on the subscribe button. It's absolutely free over on the podcast app, on Apple podcast, on Spotify or anywhere else that you can listen to podcasts. We'd love to have you come back and listen to more. We've had some incredible guests in the past month alone that have blown people away and we've got some big guests coming up. That's right.

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the one that is waiting for us. I love you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music