Giving to Other from What We've Been Given - Thomas Williams
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Throughout scripture, we're instructed to care for the poor and the weak, to be generous with our time, money, and knowledge, and to serve and help others. Giving is not about what we receive. We give for the sake of giving. To help those less fortunate than us, there will always be people less fortunate, and we will always be less fortunate than others.
[00:00:30] No one succeeds in life or gets through life without the help of someone. We are given blessings every day. God gave us the first and most important one when He died so that we may be saved and it's up to us to give the blessings that we've received in our lives to others. What we give can take so many forms from giving money and financial support to giving our time, our attention, or even inspiring and motivating others through similar experiences that we've already been through.
[00:01:08] We can give food, we can give clothing, and we can give love. This week on Relentless Hope, Thomas Williams, former NFL linebacker turned motivational speaker teaches us about giving to others what we were once given. As Thomas explains, he realized his dream of playing professional sports because his mom, mentors, coaches, teachers, friends, and the parents of his friends gave him so much.
[00:01:39] They gave him their time. Their wisdom and their inspiration so that he could be empowered. The people in Thomas's life helped him, they fed him, and even bought him his first suit to wear to the White House when his college football team USC won the national championship.
[00:02:01] In part one of this three part series, Thomas explains that we have a responsability to pay forward what we've been given. We have a duty to help each other out.
[00:02:13] In part two of this three part series, Thomas teaches us that sometimes we go through experiences not for our benefit, but for the benefit of the people we lead. As he explains the advice, guidance, and encouragement he gives to people today is actually based on his lived experiences and what people have taught and shared with him along the way, Thomas also teaches us to lead by example, to listen to the people we lead, to be confident and assertive in our decisions, and to be willing and accepting that we'll make mistakes along the way and that we're not perfect and we never will be.
[00:02:55] In part three of this three part series, we hear about how Thomas hopes his legacy. Will be that he gave to others because others gave to him. Thomas shows us that we have a responsibility to teach what we've learned and to give what we've been blessed to receive. As Thomas explains, his mom always told him that it didn't matter how much money he made, what mattered was whether he was positively impacting other people.
[00:03:27] We have an extraordinary opportunity to positively impact people every day, and Thomas inspires us to seek these moments and take advantage of them, to pass on everything that we've received. As Thomas reminds us, we have a responsibility to pay forward all the blessings that God has granted us. I want you to remember, we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
[00:03:59] Welcome to the Relentless Hope podcast with Thomas Williams.
[00:04:08] While in sixth grade, Thomas Williams wanted to spend time with his friend after school, but kept getting turned down. One day he decided to confront his friend about the situation.
[00:04:20] Thomas Williams: I called him three straight days until finally on the third day I said, man, what's up? You hang out with me at school, but you don't hang out with me after school. Is it my breath? Am my funky? Why don't you want to hang out? And he gave me like the best piece of advice that I could ever, ever receive at that time. He said, Thomas. When we get out of school, the first thing that I do is I come home and I do my homework. I do my chores, and then whatever time I have left to go outside and play or play sports or hang out, that's what I do.
[00:04:51] He said, let me ask you this question. What's the first thing you do when you come home? And I said, well, first thing I do is I take off my backpack, get outta my school clothes, get into my play clothes, and let's go play. That's the first thing I do. He said, well, what's the thing you do after that? I go, then I do my homework.
[00:05:07] He said, that's the difference between us two. He said, you do the things you want to do first, and then you do the things you have to do second.
[00:05:19] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, we hear from Thomas Williams, a former NFL linebacker, as he tells us his experiences growing up. He'll tell us about the impact his family and his friends had on him to work hard, set priorities and find rest in the word of God. Through these experiences, he was molded into the person he is today.
[00:05:45] Thomas Williams: Hi, my name is Thomas Williams. I live in Southern California. I went to the University of Southern California, graduated in 2007, played in the NFL for five years. Originally, I'm from Northern California in a small town called Vacaville, where I graduated high school, went to middle school there and went to elementary school.
[00:06:07] When I lived in Vacaville, I was always thinking about sports. Uh, by the time I was seven years old, I had already figured out what I wanted my life's goal to be. I was going to an Oakland A's baseball game with my mom, and after the game, we were driving back to Vacaville from the Oakland Coliseum and she said, what'd you think of the game?
[00:06:28] I was like, mom, that's it. I found it. I found out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I wanna be a professional athlete. So she kind of looked at me and paused for a second, and it was almost like she said, no, seriously, what do you want to be? I said, mom, that's it. And so at seven years old, every single time I took a jump shot on the basketball court at recess, every time I was up to bat in the park or in the neighborhood, every time I caught a pass, I always believe that I was a professional athlete.
[00:06:59] At that moment, I finally got what I wanted to be, but it wasn't that I had the dream, I had the vision, and then it was gonna happen. There was life circumstances that happened and occurred, uh, things that shifted my perspective, things that allowed me to become, uh, more fully present, more engaged, and more excited about life.
[00:07:27] The reason why my mom was my greatest hero still to this day and even growing up, is because she, she showed me what work ethic is. She showed me the valuable parts of work, work ethic, how to be disciplined, how to stay committed, how to persevere.
[00:07:41] Uh, growing up my mom cleaned houses and it was just her by herself. She owned her own company, her own business. And every single day she would wake up and she would go to someone's house and she would clean it. And these are three, four, 5,000 square foot homes that she was just cleaning by herself. And she never complained after school, taking me to practice, picking me up from practice, taking me to games, going to games.
[00:08:03] She never complained.
[00:08:06] She could have said she couldn't do something that day because her back was tired, or because her shoulders were tired, or because she was just constantly going and cleaning, but she never did. And I remember when I got to high school and I started playing football, I would always picture my mom's face every single day when I got tired.
[00:08:26] And I started to think, I remember playing football when my mom, uh, was, she wasn't cleaning houses at that time, but I remember back to childhood when she was cleaning houses and she never made an excuse for why she was tired. And so every time I stepped on the football field, I kind of had the same energy and the same integrity and the same passion that she did is that I don't have an excuse to be tired because if my mom can clean houses all day long, not complain, I can at least play in a game for four quarters and not complain and not get tired.
[00:09:00] So for that, my mom is my biggest hero. She was my first hero. And so instead of complaining when things get tough or instead of complaining when you get tired, you gotta persevere and you gotta push through. It's almost like my mom gave me my first motivational quote when I was a kid and it went like this.
[00:09:21] If you keep going, you can break through, but if you stop, that's when you break down.
[00:09:28] One of the biggest, uh, moments in my life, pivotal moments in my life happened when I was in sixth grade and happened early on. You know, you can either allow other people's opinions limit you, or you can live off your own expectations that will push you and catapult you further and through anything in life.
[00:09:48] I was in sixth grade and my mom came home from a parent-teacher conference and she comes in crying, crying and upset. And at first I thought the teacher did something to her or my mom got in an accident or something happened on her way home. And she said, do you know what your sixth grade teacher told me today?
[00:10:06] And I was thinking just like every other year I talked too much in class. I was really good at recess. I didn't do my homework, I didn't like to read out loud, but this day it was something completely different. She said, your teacher told me by the time you're 16 years old that you're gonna be the leader of a gang, you're gonna be shot, stabbed, and eventually dead.
[00:10:26] And I was like, oh my gosh.
[00:10:30] I wasn't even worried about what the teacher thought of me. I was just more concerned that he pissed my mom off. How are you gonna make her cry? How are you gonna make the woman that I love cry? And I don't, at the time, I didn't know how I was gonna do it. But I remember looking into my mom's eyes, deep into her soul, thinking one day I'm gonna give you tears of joy and not tears of pain.
[00:10:53] And when the teacher said that to my mom, I thought, how could this person put some type of glass ceiling over my head? How could they have my life planned out? And I just remember thinking to myself, this can't be the end of my life. I don't only have four more years to live. I don't only have four more years to do anything with my life.
[00:11:18] Based off of his expectations or his limitations for my life, I was scared. I was nervous. But I think at that time, being 12 years old, it made me dig deep down inside so that I would have to become what my expectations were or what he placed on my life. And I'll never forget that moment because from there on out, it was, I had to prove my mom right who believed in me.
[00:11:48] And I also felt encouraged and inspired to prove him wrong. Was he gonna be true? Was he gonna be the person that told my story and it was gonna be true? Or am I gonna be the person who's gonna tell my story and it be true? And that's when I was 12 years old. I figured it out.
[00:12:07] You have people who are rooting against you. You have to prove them wrong, but you also have people who are rooting for you and you have an opportunity to prove them right.
[00:12:17] You see so many times in life people can discourage us from going into our greatness, stepping into our greatness, and becoming the people who we feel that we are. But we have a choice.
[00:12:28] There's a saying, everybody has the same chance, but everybody doesn't make the same choices. At that time, I had the same chance to be successful or, or whatever I wanted my dreams to be, but I had to make different choices based off of my previous choices. The reason why he said that is because I was the person at school who was always getting in trouble, always getting in fights, and I had so much anger and rage and inside of me at 12 years old.
[00:12:55] You see, I was a product of a biracial marriage, dad being black, mom being white, and so I had identity issues. Um, was upset that my parents got divorced at such a young age. Where do I fit in? Why do other kids. Can bring their dads to donuts days and I didn't have that. Or, uh, after baseball games, dads would carry their, their kids equipment or just anything that had to do with a traditional family.
[00:13:25] I believe that I was just really hurting internally because of that. And so that's why my sixth grade teacher made those comments because I was just lashing out every single day at whether it was at recess, in the classroom. And I really, uh, was just, uh, hurt emotionally and I didn't know how to voice that.
[00:13:44] And so I think the only way that I could get my thoughts out of my head or um, act out, so to speak, just to bring the pain to other people instead of, uh, being a model citizen in society. And I didn't know how to do it. And I think that at that moment with my sixth grade teacher, that was my wake up call of, if you keep acting this way, Your life's not gonna turn out to be the professional athlete that you want to be.
[00:14:13] Your life can be different, and it's not the way that you envision it, but it's the way that people perceive me. And so that moment it was, I need to make a change in my life and I need to make a change for the better. So after the talk that my sixth grade teacher had with my mom, it, it wasn't just like a light bulb Aha! Moment where things changed because I was, I able to identify a problem.
[00:14:38] Um, just like anything else, it takes time. And so I identified that I wanted to change, but I just didn't know how. And so, you know, a funny story is, you know, they say when, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And my teacher just so happened to be one of my best friends who was a year older than me by the name of Todd Early, and Todd came from traditional background, uh, two parent household, one of my best friends who lived across, uh, around the corner from me.
[00:15:05] And I remember going to Todd's house all the time. And just when I'd go to the refrigerator, because I was uh, one of those chunky kids at the time where I would always eat everything where I'd tell people I was just a growing boy. But I would go to Todd's refrigerator and I'd look at his report card on the refrigerator and I'd see a a a a a six A's.
[00:15:24] And I would think first like, whoa, wonder what that feels like. Cuz it, up until that point, my highest grade point average was a 2.3. And then I remember that same week calling Todd like three days in a row. Like I'd call him after school, I'd say, Todd, you wanna hang out? You wanna play? Nope. I'd call him three straight days until finally on the third day I said, man, what's up Todd?
[00:15:52] You hang out with me at school, but you don't hang out with me after school. Is it my breath? Am I funky? Why don't you want to hang out? And he gave me like the best piece of advice that I could ever, ever receive at that time.
[00:16:05] He said, Thomas. When we get outta school, the first thing that I do is I come home and I do my homework, I do my chores, and then whatever time I have left to go outside and play or play sports or hang out, that's what I do. He said, let me ask you this question. What's the first thing you do when you come home? And I said, well, first thing I do is I take off my backpack, get outta my school clothes, get into my plate clothes, and let's go play. That's the first thing I do. He said, well, what's the thing you do after that? I go, then I do my homework. He said, that's the difference between us two. He said, you do the things you want to do first, and then you do the things you have to do second.
[00:16:41] When I get outta school, I come home and I do the things I have to do first, and then I do the things I want to do second, and Todd gave me just this gift at that time because it carried over into life, sports, everything.
[00:16:56] Another story is in high school, finding out if you want to be successful, the thing you have to do in life, is you have to be willing to do the things that other people aren't willing to do. Well, I remember high school coach, he gave us homework, so to speak, after, after a game one night that we lost and we shouldn't have lost the game.
[00:17:17] After the game, coach brought us up, said, Hey guys, I wanna teach you how to finish tonight. He said, I want every single one of you guys to go home and do a hundred pushups. And you heard all the complaining. Everybody was complaining, didn't want to do it. We just finished a game, we were tired.
[00:17:33] He said, I want you, I want you to learn how to finish. So I don't care how many sets, just make sure you do a hundred pushups. So I went home and I did pushups and my mom's looking at me a little funny like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm doing pushups. She was watching TV and I was a little embarrassed, but I did my hundred pushups.
[00:17:49] Finally woke up the next day, when I was in the shower, shampoo in my hair, I just remember how tired my shoulders were, get to school, hanging out with my friends, and I go around the circle and I start asking every single one of 'em, how many did you do? First guy was telling me, no, I did 70. The next guy, I did 50, 30. Somebody was like, I didn't even do 'em.
[00:18:10] And I learned at that moment that if you want something in life, you have to identify what other people who are chasing the same thing aren't willing to do. And then you can master those things to become as successful as you want to be. So just like Todd had reminded me and taught me, do the things you have to do first, and then you can do the things you want to do.
[00:18:33] And that's helped me in sports, that's helped me in business, that's helped me with motivational speaking. That helped me even becoming an author. So I encourage all of you to make sure, find out what other people aren't willing to do, master those things. And remember, do the things you have to do first so that you can do the things you want to do later.
[00:18:55] Growing up um, to be completely honest, faith was not, uh, a big part of my life. Um, I wasn't a bad kid. I didn't believe in nothing or, or atheist or Buddha or anything. I literally just wasn't, uh, privy to it. And I won't forget this story. At 18 years old, it was my graduation and my dad had flown out from Florida all the way to Vacaville to come to my high school graduation.
[00:19:23] And it was one of the hottest days of the year. I think it was like 112 degrees. And my dad shows up and he's wearing like this dark purple suit, real fly looking sweet. And uh, the reason why I bring up that story is cuz we still laugh about it until this day where my dad was sitting there in the stands, in the high school bleachers and he was just sweating.
[00:19:43] Oh my goodness. Can't even believe, uh, he decided to wear that shirt or he decided to wear that suit because it was so hot. And after graduation, we went back to my house for a little bit of a celebration. Coaches, family, friends, a lot of people came over and it was about a couple hours into the party. My dad tells me, we're going to the, uh, I gotta leave head back to Florida.
[00:20:09] And so I walked into his car and my dad reaches in the car and says, I got something for you. And at least in my mind, I thought he was getting ready to hand me a brand new car, some car keys, a whole bunch of money, something for graduation, and handed me a Bible. And he said, this right here, we'll give you more strength, more encouragement than I could ever give you.
[00:20:30] He said his boxing coach from when he grew up, gave him that Bible. And today he wanted to give that to me. And I'm thinking to myself, man, what am I gonna do with this? I don't know how to read it. I don't know where to start. I don't know how long the story goes. I never really read the Bible like that.
[00:20:46] And he was sure enough right, because about a few months later in the training camp at USC, I needed more strength, I needed more encouragement, I needed more persistence. I just needed something that I never had before because this was the first time in my entire life where I wasn't good enough at sports.
[00:21:06] I'd always been able to hide playing sports. I'd always been able to get by based off of my athletic ability. But this time I wasn't able to do that. And so the same bible that my dad gave me that I had no clue what to do with that, he told me would give me more strength, more encouragement than he could ever give me actually showed up.
[00:21:27] I was taking a nap one day in training camp while at usc and the team chaplain came up, tapped me on the shoulder and said, tonight we got Bible study. And I was thinking, do I go to Bible study or do I go to sleep? Do I go to Bible study? Do I go to sleep? I said, I'm gonna go to sleep.
[00:21:44] So about a week later, chaplain comes up. Same thing, we got Bible study tonight. Do I go to Bible study? Do I go to sleep? Do I go to Bible study? Do I go to sleep? And finally I said, Nope. I'm not gonna Bible study cuz I'm gonna need to get some sleep. He said, Thomas, I promise you this. If you come to Bible study, you'll get more rest than if you go to sleep.
[00:22:05] And so I went and there became my, my spiritual journey. My faith started to grow from that day forward because he was right. Even though I didn't get as much sleep that night, I got more word. And as I got more word, more connected with God, learning more about God, and then also the messages and the things that God wanted me to see for my life, I just grew more and more connected to his voice and to his purpose for my life.
[00:22:33] And so if it had not been for my dad giving me the Bible, I don't know where my faith would be. I know it wouldn't be as strong. I know that I would not have had the encouragement going through the trials and tribulations that I went through. So for that, I'm forever grateful that my dad decided to give me his Bible so that I could develop my own faith and own relationship with God.
[00:22:56] Because I'll tell you this right now, all of the things that I've gone through since receiving the Bible, I wouldn't have made it through if I would not have received the Bible. So my dad was a superhero in that moment, and it was definitely obedient to God's voice.
[00:23:13] One of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life is transition out of football.
[00:23:19] The whole reason that was the one of the hardest and most difficult things for me to do is because the whole time growing up, I always consider myself an athlete. I was always connected to sports. I, that was where my identity was. And so to no longer be able to have that, it literally almost killed me.
[00:23:40] Where I thought I was prepared for the transition, whether it was in college or whether it was playing professional sports during my off time, I tried different internships. I tried different programs just to see some of the things that would keep my passion and keep me interested when I got done playing.
[00:23:57] And how did I come into motivational speaking? People ask me this all the time. I was taking a flight all the way from Tampa Bay to California. I'll never forget, it was a Friday morning and I'm just writing on a piece of paper. What do I want to do with the rest of my life? So I just started writing.
[00:24:18] What did I like about the first 27 years? I could play sports, I could have fun. I could act like a kid on the football field and then act like a responsible adult off. I love connecting with people. I love pushing my mind and my body to a certain limit. I said, this is what I want to do. I wanna work just as hard for six months as I did in football and get paid just as much money.
[00:24:43] That was like one of those things where you just have a little bit higher of an expectation than what the reality was because I'll tell you this, that's not the case. But I thought, you know what? How about I can dream? So writing down, I said the same thing I did in football as a middle linebacker, was taking the information from the defensive coordinator and telling it to 10 other players.
[00:25:07] I love that. I love being in front of an, a crowd. I love being in front of the huddle and getting the, a defense and the other defensive players to see what was possible, and also getting them inspired to see what wasn't possible. So motivating them was something I loved, something I was passionate about.
[00:25:24] I also loved encouraging people. Whether it was my teammates, family members, or anybody who I came across, I always wanted to find an a positive, encouraging word to tell them, to uplift them, to make it to the next moment. Because I had so many coaches, so many mentors along the way who, when I wanted to quit, I wanted to give up, they were giving me a positive and encouraging word. So I wrote down, I'll never forget this, the last thing I wrote down on that same piece of paper before we landed in LA was, I want to be the person that everybody speaks to right before they get ready to do something they don't even believe they can do.
[00:25:59] And I said, that's my mission statement. That's what I want to do. Well, that was a Friday and two days later I'm driving to church out in, uh, Shepperd in the Hills out in Porter Ranch where Pastor Dudley was, was speaking.
[00:26:10] And I'm driving out there from downtown, which is about a 40 minute drive, and I'm just asking God, okay, God, You know why You took me out and away from the game. Whether it was for safety issues, uh, you wanted me to, uh, move with a deeper mission, a purpose, um, I, I still don't know to this day, but I'm just praying. God, tell me something. Tell me something. Tell me something. So I park my car, grab my Bible. I start walking to the church and I walk through the doors.
[00:26:38] And I'll never forget hearing this song this way. And I'd heard this song a thousand times, but I never heard it this way. It said, my chains are gone and now I'm free. And the song was amazing, grace. And I just remember thinking to myself, okay, God, we got something today. You, you, you, you definitely want to tell me something.
[00:26:56] So I sit down, the pastor's going over his message, and to be completely honest, I couldn't even tell you what the message was about, but I just remember God having my full and undivided attention telling me, Thomas, you thought football was your purpose, but it was just your passion to lead you to your purpose. Your purpose is people, building up people.
[00:27:17] Now you'll have a bigger platform because you played in the NFL, but that was not your reason. And I feel 100% that if God wouldn't have given me that message that day, I'd have been lost because losing my identity, but I regained my identity through exploring and finding out that people and motivating people was my purpose.
[00:27:41] And so I'll never forget that day that God had a conversation with me. And even though it hasn't been easy, even though it hasn't been, uh, I haven't been fearless the whole time, I at least knew I was on the right track, which when the scriptures say, ask, seek and knock. Ask and you'll be told, seek and you will find and knock, and the door will be open.
[00:28:01] And that's exactly what God did to me that day, which I needed him at that crucial time in my life because I lost something I thought I needed, which was the game of football, but God came through for me and showed me that I have a reason for being on this earth, and it's not just to play the game of football.
[00:28:22] I think accountability's one of the most important parts of leadership, um, accountable to whatever the mission is, accountable to the vision, accountable to, uh, the standards. Because sometimes we, we can't see ourselves, you know, it's easier to look through the window than it is to look through, into the mirror.
[00:28:44] And so we have to have people who can hold us accountable, where we can't have the ego leading it. It literally needs to be with, uh, uh, an open mind and an open heart where we have to have people who are on the same level who can hold us accountable. Because one of the hardest things is if the people who are following you don't respect you, they're not seeing you lead by example.
[00:29:10] Then it's easy to lose them, um, as, as followers and getting them to do the things that, that you want them to do for the growth, for the betterment. The hardest thing is to lead people from the front. When you're not participating in the work.
[00:29:33] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, Thomas explains that leadership is about holding the respect of those who follow you. He mentions how we can set a positive example for others and how we ensure that we are the best leaders when we hold each other accountable.
[00:29:51] Thomas Williams: Leadership. Wow. One of the, uh, one of the biggest topics and buzzwords that are out right now.
[00:29:59] You know, it's funny whether it's, uh, a conference, whether it's a conversation, or whether it's a podcast. The theme of leadership, it, uh, it makes me think. Uh, and being completely transparent, it's, uh, doesn't make me think about myself. It makes me think about all the other people who have led, whether it's been in sports, whether it's in business, whether it's in life, whether it's in public speaking.
[00:30:26] All the people who I look up to, it reminds me of them. Uh, one of the things that God has blessed me with has been a great example of leadership, whether it was when I was growing up and my mom's boyfriend at the time, Ron, he led me in a way asking me simple questions of when people see you, what are they gonna think?
[00:30:51] They're only gonna think about you based off the actions, whether it was my high school coach who was a leader and made sure that all of his players felt like they were heard, listened to, and that they had a fair chance. When I got to college, I played for one of the greatest coaches in the world, Ken Norton, Jr.
[00:31:08] And his leadership ability was, he always wanted his players to feel like people before they felt like players. And he always wanted to make sure that he saved time for us and listened to us so that he could motivate us individually.
[00:31:21] Pete Carroll the same thing in college. Great leader cuz he led by example. He made it really, really simple. Always compete, whether it was on the practice field, whether it was in the classroom, whether it was in the weight room, or whether it was on the playing field come game day. When I transitioned outside of sports, I had great leaders as well. A guy by the name of David B Scott, AKA pops, the guy who makes sure that you always dress for the job that you want, not the job that you have.
[00:31:52] Whether it was Scott and Kelly who have helped me get my business off the ground, taking it from an idea in my brain to a reality. They were great leaders. Um, John Gordon, who's one of my mentors right now. Great leader. Public speaking and as an author, just leading by example, opening up doors for the people who are following him to have exposure to it.
[00:32:17] So I don't really consider myself a leader. I think that I have great examples of leaders, uh, which in turn just kind of hold me accountable to the standards of what leadership is. I think a great leader has to do one thing really well. Everything else, uh, can kind of come second, third, fourth. But I think a great leader has to listen, you know, listen, so that you can have something, uh, interesting to say, listen, so that the other person will feel heard, listen, so that you'll have an unbiased opinion on how to lead.
[00:32:55] I'll never forget when I was in college and my, uh, college coach was having a conversation with me. And in this moment, I just needed to be heard and I also needed to be encouraged. And it was going into my senior year and I thought, how can you ever keep fighting when you feel like you can't win the fight?
[00:33:22] And I just said that to him. I said, coach, I don't feel like I'm getting enough playing time. I don't feel like I'm gonna have all the game film and the tape in order to get drafted and play in the NFL. I don't feel like I'm getting the respect I deserve. I don't feel like, I don't feel like, I don't feel a, I was a worrier and I was a complainer in that moment.
[00:33:39] And I said, coach, what if I give everything to the NFL and they still don't want me? I'm trying everything I possibly can, and a great leader again, so he listened to me. He heard exactly what I said in that moment, and then he encouraged me. He said, Thomas, if you give everything that you possibly have to any opportunity, this opportunity, an opportunity in the rest of your life for the rest of your life, if you give everything you can to an opportunity and it still doesn't accept you, maybe that opportunity isn't good enough for you.
[00:34:14] And I remember him in that moment, giving me the confidence to push through and not to stop, not to quit. And he really empowered me. I think if a leader doesn't listen, then he's not really a leader. She's not really a leader.
[00:34:32] The person has to listen first. The next, the next quality a leader has, in my opinion, is they're leading by example. Whether it's in sports, whether it's in a job, whether it's in a house, whether it's in school, whatever you have as a leader, you gotta lead by example. I'll never forget when I was living with my dad in the second grade, you'd always tell me, Hey, make sure when you grow up, you don't smoke cigarettes.
[00:35:02] And could you believe it? He was telling me this while he was lighting up another cigarette. How can you tell me not to smoke cigarettes, and you were smoking cigarettes. Or football coaches who are telling their kids, hey, run after the ball. Do a drill this way. Take on a blocker this way. Catch a ball this way. But they can't do it themselves.
[00:35:24] In the house. You're telling your kids to take out the trash, but the parents aren't illustrating that example and they're not doing it themselves. Or even one of the biggest things I have is the teachers. They're raising our babies, raising the kids. As a leader, you gotta lead by example.
[00:35:44] When you tell a kid they can be anything they want to be, you have to understand. They're looking at you thinking, well, you're a teacher. Is that what you wanted to be? Because I feel like if we're not leading by example, the only thing we're doing is we're talking at people.
[00:35:59] You know, that's why I love the story of Jesus.
[00:36:02] He came down on this earth to lead by example. Say, these are the rules, these are the commandments. In the Old Testament, people didn't get it right. So he said, I need to send my son down on the earth to show you how it can get done. And listening, listening, leading by example. In the third one, and I think a lot of you out there need to hear this one because you are in leadership roles, is you have to understand that you're not gonna get it perfect.
[00:36:33] Have to leave a little bit of room in there for discovery, for exploration. Leaders aren't supposed to be perfect, but they need to be confident. So even if you make a mistake, even if you mess up, that's all right. But be confident, be assertive in your decision. So again, leadership, listen. Lead by example, lead with confidence, and don't be afraid to make a mistake.
[00:37:04] I think accountability's one of the most important parts of leadership, um, accountable to whatever the mission is, accountable to the vision, accountable to, uh, the standards. Because sometimes we, we can't see ourselves, you know, it's easier to look through the window than it is to look through, into the mirror.
[00:37:26] And so we have to have people who can hold us accountable, where we can't have the ego leading it. It literally needs to be with, uh, uh, an open mind and an open heart where we have to have people who are on the same level, who can hold us accountable. Because one of the hardest things is if the people who are following you don't respect you, they're not seeing you lead by example, then it's easy to lose them, um, as, as followers and getting them to do the things that, that you want them to do for the growth, for the betterment.
[00:38:04] The hardest thing is to lead people from the front when you're not participating in the work. And so for all of us as leaders who consider ourselves leaders, no matter how big or small your role is as a leader, what you have to do is you need to be held accountable, allowing other people to hold us accountable in all different areas of our life.
[00:38:31] One of the things I love about God's voice is his accountability. Um, usually it happens for me when I'm going on a walk and I'm just processing something or working through something in my mind, and I feel like I have a really good argument against God. Okay, God, why is this happening? I've done this, I've done this, I've done this.
[00:38:53] And as nice and as subtle, and as firm and as confident, God always seems a way to slap me into shape and remind me of the truth. When I said, God, you know what? I want to be a number one bestseller. I want to be this kind of motivational speaker. I wanna be the top guy. God's saying, are you doing all of the things that you need to be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis to be put in that position?
[00:39:25] And God doesn't tell me that I don't deserve it. He's just asking me the question, holding me accountable. Thomas, this is what you said you wanted to do. Are you doing the things in order to make this happen? And to be honest with you, a lot of the times the answer is no. And so God's holding me accountable, and I think that's one of the greatest illustrations of accountability and leading by example.
[00:39:51] How will I ever be able to get to the places in the position that I want to get to if I'm not being held accountable to the standards? It's one thing to be a public success and a private failure. It's another thing to live a certain standard of life all the way across the board, and I usually get those from moments of accountability with God, and I get 'em also with the people who are in my close circle, holding me accountable to what I said.
[00:40:20] Much is given, much is required, sounds good. It's one of those scriptures that I love to say, but it doesn't feel good when you're having that type of experience. Sometimes a leader has to go through something, not for their own benefit, for their punishment, for their good, but for the good of others, and so that they can lead people certain places.
[00:40:46] Certain times when I got, I was one of the first people outta my friends to stop playing football. And I remember asking God, why me? Why me? Why me? Why me? This isn't fair? And God told me, I didn't remove you from football for punishment, but I strategically and specifically removed you so that you can lead the people who will be coming out of football.
[00:41:12] And so fast forward nine years later, one of my for-profit and nonprofit missions and purpose is to help athletes transitioning outside of football. And again, like I've said before, is that leading by example. So everything that I teach, everything that I share, the nuggets that I drop, the wisdom that I pass along, it's all based off of experience.
[00:41:40] And even though I thought it was for harm and I thought it was something that, it was a punishment where I didn't deserve it, and I started to go into the why me? Why me? Why me? I understood that God was saying, look, I need you to lead people, but in order to lead this group of people, you're gonna have to go through certain things.
[00:41:59] So what is it for you that you've gone through, that you're going through that isn't necessarily a testament for you, but it's for the people who you're leading, the people in your circle, whether it's at work, it's at home, in your community. There's things that you go through and it's not necessarily for you, but it's for the people who you can lead.
[00:42:25] That's what I think when it comes into accountability, comes into listening, and then it comes into leading by example. All of those things have a place for us, but we have to understand that what we go through isn't. The punishment isn't necessarily to harm us, to even stop us, but mainly it's to encourage us so that we can encourage the other people.
[00:42:52] You know, you remember what, uh, what Paul says, says, I have to encourage myself. And I think that's beautiful cuz if you can encourage yourself, you can encourage anybody else.
[00:43:05] All right, so who wants to be a leader? Well, I got news for you. Everybody's a leader. It doesn't matter how big, how small your tribe is or the people in the group of people that you're leading, there's somebody always looking to you for advice and acknowledge an example.
[00:43:24] Um, always, always understand there's somebody who we're looking at for advice. The way, the path, an example, and I love it when people say what makes a Christian. I don't have the answer. I just say one of the answers for me is to follow Christ. Pick up your cross and follow Christ. That's what I think about all the time.
[00:43:49] It's based off of His examples, based off of His teachings, based off of His experiences. He's just leading from all of those places. And the same thing for me is, again, not saying that I am a leader, leadership guru, none of that. I think just I've been fortunate enough to have a bunch of great leaders and mentors in my lives, and the only thing that all of them told me was, you can never repay me. You can just pay it forward.
[00:44:20] And so that's a little bit of my theory, my methodology, where I believe, for me, my calling in the leadership space is we are gonna all listen. We can all lead by example. And even though we always feel like we want to be perfect or you have to be perfect, you don't need to be.
[00:44:42] Cuz a leader is not somebody who's perfect, a leader, somebody who tries things, is open to new things and makes the people who are following them felt heard and seen. So leadership, even though it's this great big, fancy word, it's really simple.
[00:45:01] The people who are looking up to you, are you giving them a good example? Are you holding yourself accountable to the same things and the same standards that you're expecting of them? And third, be confident. Be you. You are a leader. Remember that,
[00:45:23] You know, I always, I always am reminded that I am responsible and held accountable for the things that I know. Where I know I wouldn't have gotten this far in my life without the help of so many of other people. I know that it was teachers who played a pivotal role. It was coaches, it was mentors, it was parents, my parents, other friends, parents.
[00:45:46] There were so many people who have a huge, played a huge role in me getting to this place that I am today, that I really feel that all of our obligation and our responsibility is to pass it. And the only way that a gift can get broken or the disconnect can happen is we stop doing our part. And our part was when we were younger or when we were coming up through the ranks, we were supposed to learn.
[00:46:09] Somebody was supposed to teach us and they're supposed to teach us what they've been taught. And the same thing is what we're supposed to do. If we've been given, then that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to give, you know, Maya Angelou has a great quote says, when you learn, teach, and when you get, give.
[00:46:25] And I think that's our responsibility is that as Christians, as humans, no matter what you believe in, no matter what your background is, is that things that you were given, you're supposed to give when you see somebody like yourself in a situation and having the opportunity to learn, that's what we're supposed to do, is we're supposed to teach them.
[00:46:49] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series. Thomas describes leaving a legacy by helping out student athletes and USC sports programs. By serving others, we are leaving a legacy that encourages people to live the best lives they can. Thomas defines a servant's legacy as a blessing to others rather than receiving.
[00:47:14] Thomas Williams: One of my favorite things to think about other than the future and dreaming is legacy. And when I think about legacy, I always think about the icons. If you throw a name like Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, mother Teresa, Gandhi, Walter Payton, all of these people have a legacy in my mind, and there's so many others that I could have added.
[00:47:40] So you think about the people who left the legacy for you. You know today, whether they're living or they're not, they thought about you as they were going on their journey, as they were taking their walk, as they were impacting the world, as they were impacting the community, as they were making their impact every single day, they woke up with purpose, intentions, and with you in mind.
[00:48:07] For me, the legacy is the last name. Growing up without my biological father in my life, and we have the exact same name, is one of the hardest things to do because in my opinion, a man, males. Um, the last name has to mean something to 'em. And so you pass your name down to your kids, to your grandkids, and so on and so forth.
[00:48:39] And so the word legacy to me starts with family. The people in my immediate family, how did I affect them? How did I impact them? And then from there it goes on to the community, the places that I have lived and the places that I live, every single day. And beside that is I believe that one of my biggest legacies that I'm supposed to impact for me is college athletes and professional athletes around the world as far as transitioning.
[00:49:08] You know, in order to do that every single day, I have to put those people in my mind and think about the people in my family with my last name. I have to think about the people in my community. And then I also have to think about athletes who have transitioned, who have retired, and then also the athletes who will transition and who will retire.
[00:49:27] Because I believe that we're all supposed to impact the community of people, and now it's just up to us to decide and to pick which one we feel called to lead. If you think about it right now, all of you who are listening to this, everybody has a favorite scripture and you can probably quote it and then you also remember who said it, and also there's a legacy of the person who said it.
[00:49:52] And so thinking about that, at that time, they were thinking about us who combined. We would read it, we would hear it, we would say it, and that's the impact that they would leave on us. That's the legacy that we have for them. They always thought about other people, wasn't necessarily about themselves, and they never think about themselves when it comes to legacy. You have to think about other people when it comes to legacy, and so I've noticed that every single day waking up it's, who am I going to inspire today? Who am I gonna inspire in this moment? Who is it that I'm called to leave a legacy for? One of the areas that I like to focus on is the school that I came from.
[00:50:32] So USC for the last two years, I've taught a player development program, um, which helps the freshman student athletes transition into college. And so one, by going to that school, I really felt connected to it. But then also those are my little brothers, my little sisters, uh, in a way because they say the Trojan family.
[00:50:56] And so every semester by going up there and helping the freshman transition into school, I always feel like I'm doing my duty and my part to leave a legacy at my school. Now, I don't know what the legacy's gonna play out like, but I just know that every single opportunity, I get a chance to go up there and really share 'em with the student athletes of some things that they're gonna experience while they're in college, whether it's how to juggle the class schedule, how to juggle the schedule of being a student athlete.
[00:51:26] Everything from my experience of being there by going back and sharing that information so that they can learn from the successes and mistakes, uh, that I endured, that I learned from the people who came before me and so on and so forth. So that's one of the areas. Living here in LA trying to connect with many non-profit organizations that have to deal with, uh, the youth and serving while I'm in town has been one of my passions.
[00:51:53] Uh, this last year I went to a non-traditional school and served for a whole semester. And by helping these kids who come from some difficult situations in life and letting them know that even though they might not feel like there's a way, there's always, there's always a way out by letting them see that all of us have a story.
[00:52:23] By sharing the wisdom with them, I love impacting the youth in the community because I feel like there's so many people who helped me. There's so many people who volunteered for me and gave me things. So I just feel like it's my obligation to do the same thing. The reason why I have such a big connection with inspiring the youth, people who are younger than me, not only because I got inspired by people when I was growing up, but because I'll never forget what my mom told me more than anything, was more important than this life lesson.
[00:53:07] The life lesson my mom gave me was Thomas. I don't care how much money you make in this world, never forget it's extremely important to how you affect mankind. That was it. And so I think from that moment forward, it was, how can I bless people based off of what I have? You know, people always say it's blessed to be a blessing, but I had to learn that and actually practice that based off of the things that my mom taught me coming from an early age.
[00:53:40] There's people who gave me the felds, I'll never forget who I, when I was in high school, they bought me my Letterman jacket because we couldn't afford it. The Alexanders gave me my first car cuz we couldn't afford it. The Felds also bought me my first suit when we won the national championship and when I was in college and we went to the White House cause they didn't have a suit, so they brought me a suit.
[00:54:05] Um, there's people who let me come to their house and eat and just gave, gave, gave, not because of what I could do athletically or not because of the places that I was going, but because they had the kindness in their heart. And I think that's the legacy that I wanna leave is that I gave because somebody gave to me.
[00:54:28] So every time I have an opportunity to give, whether it's time, money, um, a shoulder to cry on, an ear, I know that every single circumstance that was difficult. I had somebody to talk to if I needed, absolutely needed something, whether it was money, whether it was something, somebody always gave it to me and it didn't come from the people who were closest to me.
[00:54:52] Um, most of the time in my life it's just been wisdom and knowledge, advice. What would you do if you were me in this situation? And those are the same kind of conversations I love to have because I feel like the reason why I was given it so I can tell it, so I can teach it, so I can share it. You know, I always, I always am reminded that I am responsible and held accountable for the things that I know.
[00:55:18] Where I know I wouldn't have gotten this far in my life without the help of so many of other people. I know that it was teachers who played a pivotal role. It was coaches, it was mentors, it was parents, my parents, other friends, parents. There were so many people who had a huge, played a huge role in me getting to this place that I am today, that I really feel that all of our obligation and our responsibility is to pass it.
[00:55:42] And the only way that a gift can get broken or the disconnect can happen is we stopped doing our part. And our part was when we were younger or when we were coming up through the ranks, we were supposed to learn. Somebody was supposed to teach us and they were supposed to teach us what they've been taught and the same thing as what we're supposed to do.
[00:56:03] If we've been given, then that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to give, you know, Maya Angelou has a great quote says, when you learn, teach, and when you get, give.
[00:56:11] And I think that's our responsibility is that as Christians, as humans, no matter what you believe in, no matter what your background is, is that things that you were given, you're supposed to give when you see somebody like yourself in a situation and having the opportunity to learn, that's what we're supposed to do, is we're supposed to teach 'em.
[00:56:34] And I also think legacies biggest component is if you've learned so much, if you've been given so much, if you are blessed, then you're supposed to be the same thing to others. The biggest thing is Jesus didn't know us personally, never saw Him. I haven't seen Him, but He came down because God said, I love you.
[00:57:02] You're kind, all of the humans, all the people. I love you so much that I'm gonna give you my only and begotten son.
[00:57:12] His legacy is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Didn't know us didn't have to, but He gave us eternal life. And so the air that you're breathing, the blessings that you have, there's always people who have less and there's people who need our help.
[00:57:33] We have to teach them, we have to show them why did Jesus come to teach us, to show us, to teach us how it can be done, to show us how it could be done in human form, and to know that we can have internal life through Him. But said, Jesus, I made you my image and my likeness. So the things that He was called to do are the same thing that we're called to do.
[00:57:59] And we break the blessings. It's when we stop blessing the same way we've been blessed. You know, in sports there's a saying that you can always get better. So even if you're the best, you can always get better. And I think the same thing goes along for the legacy aspect. And by giving to people, being generous, being a blessing together, we can always be more of a blessing.
[00:58:25] And so recently I started journaling every single day I'll journal something, it can be five minutes, it can be an hour, but I'm always journaling something. And in that time period, I always find a blessing that I didn't notice before. For example, the blessing the other day was, God, I'm just so thankful for all the opportunities.
[00:58:46] I'm so thankful for the, all the opportunities that You've given me to speak, to be able to use my brain, to be able to use my mind, to be able to use my voice. I'm so thankful. And then it started making me think about all the people who have blessed me, whether it was, uh, with wisdom, with knowledge. And so I reached out to all of those people the next day, and now I'm not gonna lie, it's just about three or four of them.
[00:59:13] But I reached out to 'em and I said, thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for doing this. And of course they said, you're welcome. They said, but you're supposed to do that for the next person. So for those of you who are out there, think about the people who are just like you used to be, whether it was when you were a kid, whether it was when you were younger, where you can have an opportunity to help somebody else out.
[00:59:43] One of the favorite quotes, I remember reading in a book a long time ago, and I, to be completely honest, can't even tell you what book it was, but the quote was, if you want more of something, give double that amount. So if you want more money, give more money. If you want more opportunities create and give more opportunities.
[01:00:03] If you want more love, give more love. If you want more time, give more time. And remember that the things that you have been given are supposed to be the things that you're supposed to give.
[01:00:19] When we see each other, we have to understand that we are just like the people in this world cuz we're all human beings and we gotta give everybody the same opportunity and chances that we've been given look outward to help.
[01:00:39] They say, you work on your legacy while you're living, but your legacy is born when you're gone. What are you creating that's gonna last a lot longer than you? What are you doing every single day that if somebody else were to tell the story, it would last longer than you? I've been so lucky to have so many mentors and so many people who have shown me the way.
[01:01:07] Show me how to get to my first dream of playing professional sports. Show me how to graduate college. Show me how to start a business. Show me how motivational speaking works, showing what's like to write a book. The blessings that I have in my life are only because of the people who have given me the knowledge, the wisdom, and the time that they've been given.
[01:01:35] I'll never forget my first mentor, the legacy that my mom has left for me. Mentors, whether it was in college, who gave me so many life principles, the people who gave me when I needed and didn't have when I was in high school. They gave me all these things so that I'm here today to be able to talk about it.
[01:01:59] They're not here, they're not around, but I'm still telling their story. For me, I hope that people tell the story of because Thomas was doing it, whatever it is that I can do it to, that I'm the example of how possible and possibilities are the legacy of even when you come outta playing sports at any level, the best of your days are still ahead of you.
[01:02:26] The best of your days are still ahead of you.
[01:02:29] That he led by example, that part of his legacy was he was a great listener. So I encourage you, take a little bit of time, find out what do you want your legacy to be, so that every single day you're not trying to run a different race. You're running your race based off of your legacy.
[01:02:49] And know that they say on everybody's tombstone, there's a day you were born and the day that you died, they say your legacy. Is what's in the dash between. So for all you out there, start living your legacy, and if you're living it, how can you live it a little stronger? How can somebody talk and tell your story when you're gone?
[01:03:11] And the people, some of your heroes, the people who you've looked up to, the people who, when they say, whose legacy do you admire? What is it about that legacy that you admire? And learn from them.
[01:03:30] Enjoy leaving your legacy. Enjoy running this race and inspire somebody else while you're doing it.
[01:03:42] Steve Gatena: Everything that we have in this life is a gift, a blessing that we've received from someone else, first, from God who died on the cross for our sins, and so that we would have a path to eternal life and a direct relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus granted us this blessing and all the good tidings that we receive are gifts from God.
[01:04:09] First and foremost, all of us have had people who have shared with us their wisdom and their knowledge. People who've opened doors for us, people who've given us opportunity, people who've opened their hearts and just given us love and compassion. People who have blessed us with things like food or water or shelter or job opportunities.
[01:04:35] We do not live a life or get through it without help from others. And what we have received, God calls us to give back, and God has never instructed us to keep or hoard his blessings for ourselves. Give, give, give what we receive. Giving is a holy act, and there is no end to our giving, just as there is no end to our receiving.
[01:05:07] This week on Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast, Thomas Williams, former NFL linebacker turned motivational speaker taught us to give back what we received. He shared some of his early experiences and what he received in the form of life lessons, inspiration, discipline, and work ethics. His Biblical messages from God that led him to find his real purpose in life when a neck injury ended his five year professional career.
[01:05:41] Thomas taught us that often we go through experiences, not for our benefit or punishment, but so that we can use those experiences to benefit others, so that we can better lead and guide people through similar experiences because we've already lived them ourselves.
[01:06:01] Thomas also taught us that we're all leaders and that we need to lead by example to listen and to let our people be heard, to be assertive and confident in our decision making, and to go easier on ourselves and stop expecting that we'll be perfect or never make mistakes. We also learned how Thomas hopes to leave a legacy. Of giving to others because others gave to him.
[01:06:28] We hear about some of the most influential people in Thomas's early life and how it was because of their help and their good deeds and their kindness, that Thomas was able to realize his dream of being a pro athlete. Thomas encouraged us to reflect on the blessings that we've been given and to think about who can we help and how can we help them, and how can we teach what we've learned and give what we've been given.
[01:06:59] Remember, God wants to bless our lives and he does so every day. And he also wants us to give back, to give more love, to give more attention, to give more time, to give more money, to give more kindness to those around us and those in need. When we give, we allow God to work through us. We allow Him to shine His love and His light onto someone else.
[01:07:29] Knowing this, how can we ever withhold our giving? I want you to remember, we only have what we give, so what are you gonna give today?
[01:07:44] If today's episode with Thomas inspired you, I want you to share it with someone you know so that you can give hope a voice.
Giving to Other from What We've Been Given - Thomas Williams
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Throughout scripture, we're instructed to care for the poor and the weak, to be generous with our time, money, and knowledge, and to serve and help others. Giving is not about what we receive. We give for the sake of giving. To help those less fortunate than us, there will always be people less fortunate, and we will always be less fortunate than others.
[00:00:30] No one succeeds in life or gets through life without the help of someone. We are given blessings every day. God gave us the first and most important one when He died so that we may be saved and it's up to us to give the blessings that we've received in our lives to others. What we give can take so many forms from giving money and financial support to giving our time, our attention, or even inspiring and motivating others through similar experiences that we've already been through.
[00:01:08] We can give food, we can give clothing, and we can give love. This week on Relentless Hope, Thomas Williams, former NFL linebacker turned motivational speaker teaches us about giving to others what we were once given. As Thomas explains, he realized his dream of playing professional sports because his mom, mentors, coaches, teachers, friends, and the parents of his friends gave him so much.
[00:01:39] They gave him their time. Their wisdom and their inspiration so that he could be empowered. The people in Thomas's life helped him, they fed him, and even bought him his first suit to wear to the White House when his college football team USC won the national championship.
[00:02:01] In part one of this three part series, Thomas explains that we have a responsability to pay forward what we've been given. We have a duty to help each other out.
[00:02:13] In part two of this three part series, Thomas teaches us that sometimes we go through experiences not for our benefit, but for the benefit of the people we lead. As he explains the advice, guidance, and encouragement he gives to people today is actually based on his lived experiences and what people have taught and shared with him along the way, Thomas also teaches us to lead by example, to listen to the people we lead, to be confident and assertive in our decisions, and to be willing and accepting that we'll make mistakes along the way and that we're not perfect and we never will be.
[00:02:55] In part three of this three part series, we hear about how Thomas hopes his legacy. Will be that he gave to others because others gave to him. Thomas shows us that we have a responsibility to teach what we've learned and to give what we've been blessed to receive. As Thomas explains, his mom always told him that it didn't matter how much money he made, what mattered was whether he was positively impacting other people.
[00:03:27] We have an extraordinary opportunity to positively impact people every day, and Thomas inspires us to seek these moments and take advantage of them, to pass on everything that we've received. As Thomas reminds us, we have a responsibility to pay forward all the blessings that God has granted us. I want you to remember, we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
[00:03:59] Welcome to the Relentless Hope podcast with Thomas Williams.
[00:04:08] While in sixth grade, Thomas Williams wanted to spend time with his friend after school, but kept getting turned down. One day he decided to confront his friend about the situation.
[00:04:20] Thomas Williams: I called him three straight days until finally on the third day I said, man, what's up? You hang out with me at school, but you don't hang out with me after school. Is it my breath? Am my funky? Why don't you want to hang out? And he gave me like the best piece of advice that I could ever, ever receive at that time. He said, Thomas. When we get out of school, the first thing that I do is I come home and I do my homework. I do my chores, and then whatever time I have left to go outside and play or play sports or hang out, that's what I do.
[00:04:51] He said, let me ask you this question. What's the first thing you do when you come home? And I said, well, first thing I do is I take off my backpack, get outta my school clothes, get into my play clothes, and let's go play. That's the first thing I do. He said, well, what's the thing you do after that? I go, then I do my homework.
[00:05:07] He said, that's the difference between us two. He said, you do the things you want to do first, and then you do the things you have to do second.
[00:05:19] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, we hear from Thomas Williams, a former NFL linebacker, as he tells us his experiences growing up. He'll tell us about the impact his family and his friends had on him to work hard, set priorities and find rest in the word of God. Through these experiences, he was molded into the person he is today.
[00:05:45] Thomas Williams: Hi, my name is Thomas Williams. I live in Southern California. I went to the University of Southern California, graduated in 2007, played in the NFL for five years. Originally, I'm from Northern California in a small town called Vacaville, where I graduated high school, went to middle school there and went to elementary school.
[00:06:07] When I lived in Vacaville, I was always thinking about sports. Uh, by the time I was seven years old, I had already figured out what I wanted my life's goal to be. I was going to an Oakland A's baseball game with my mom, and after the game, we were driving back to Vacaville from the Oakland Coliseum and she said, what'd you think of the game?
[00:06:28] I was like, mom, that's it. I found it. I found out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I wanna be a professional athlete. So she kind of looked at me and paused for a second, and it was almost like she said, no, seriously, what do you want to be? I said, mom, that's it. And so at seven years old, every single time I took a jump shot on the basketball court at recess, every time I was up to bat in the park or in the neighborhood, every time I caught a pass, I always believe that I was a professional athlete.
[00:06:59] At that moment, I finally got what I wanted to be, but it wasn't that I had the dream, I had the vision, and then it was gonna happen. There was life circumstances that happened and occurred, uh, things that shifted my perspective, things that allowed me to become, uh, more fully present, more engaged, and more excited about life.
[00:07:27] The reason why my mom was my greatest hero still to this day and even growing up, is because she, she showed me what work ethic is. She showed me the valuable parts of work, work ethic, how to be disciplined, how to stay committed, how to persevere.
[00:07:41] Uh, growing up my mom cleaned houses and it was just her by herself. She owned her own company, her own business. And every single day she would wake up and she would go to someone's house and she would clean it. And these are three, four, 5,000 square foot homes that she was just cleaning by herself. And she never complained after school, taking me to practice, picking me up from practice, taking me to games, going to games.
[00:08:03] She never complained.
[00:08:06] She could have said she couldn't do something that day because her back was tired, or because her shoulders were tired, or because she was just constantly going and cleaning, but she never did. And I remember when I got to high school and I started playing football, I would always picture my mom's face every single day when I got tired.
[00:08:26] And I started to think, I remember playing football when my mom, uh, was, she wasn't cleaning houses at that time, but I remember back to childhood when she was cleaning houses and she never made an excuse for why she was tired. And so every time I stepped on the football field, I kind of had the same energy and the same integrity and the same passion that she did is that I don't have an excuse to be tired because if my mom can clean houses all day long, not complain, I can at least play in a game for four quarters and not complain and not get tired.
[00:09:00] So for that, my mom is my biggest hero. She was my first hero. And so instead of complaining when things get tough or instead of complaining when you get tired, you gotta persevere and you gotta push through. It's almost like my mom gave me my first motivational quote when I was a kid and it went like this.
[00:09:21] If you keep going, you can break through, but if you stop, that's when you break down.
[00:09:28] One of the biggest, uh, moments in my life, pivotal moments in my life happened when I was in sixth grade and happened early on. You know, you can either allow other people's opinions limit you, or you can live off your own expectations that will push you and catapult you further and through anything in life.
[00:09:48] I was in sixth grade and my mom came home from a parent-teacher conference and she comes in crying, crying and upset. And at first I thought the teacher did something to her or my mom got in an accident or something happened on her way home. And she said, do you know what your sixth grade teacher told me today?
[00:10:06] And I was thinking just like every other year I talked too much in class. I was really good at recess. I didn't do my homework, I didn't like to read out loud, but this day it was something completely different. She said, your teacher told me by the time you're 16 years old that you're gonna be the leader of a gang, you're gonna be shot, stabbed, and eventually dead.
[00:10:26] And I was like, oh my gosh.
[00:10:30] I wasn't even worried about what the teacher thought of me. I was just more concerned that he pissed my mom off. How are you gonna make her cry? How are you gonna make the woman that I love cry? And I don't, at the time, I didn't know how I was gonna do it. But I remember looking into my mom's eyes, deep into her soul, thinking one day I'm gonna give you tears of joy and not tears of pain.
[00:10:53] And when the teacher said that to my mom, I thought, how could this person put some type of glass ceiling over my head? How could they have my life planned out? And I just remember thinking to myself, this can't be the end of my life. I don't only have four more years to live. I don't only have four more years to do anything with my life.
[00:11:18] Based off of his expectations or his limitations for my life, I was scared. I was nervous. But I think at that time, being 12 years old, it made me dig deep down inside so that I would have to become what my expectations were or what he placed on my life. And I'll never forget that moment because from there on out, it was, I had to prove my mom right who believed in me.
[00:11:48] And I also felt encouraged and inspired to prove him wrong. Was he gonna be true? Was he gonna be the person that told my story and it was gonna be true? Or am I gonna be the person who's gonna tell my story and it be true? And that's when I was 12 years old. I figured it out.
[00:12:07] You have people who are rooting against you. You have to prove them wrong, but you also have people who are rooting for you and you have an opportunity to prove them right.
[00:12:17] You see so many times in life people can discourage us from going into our greatness, stepping into our greatness, and becoming the people who we feel that we are. But we have a choice.
[00:12:28] There's a saying, everybody has the same chance, but everybody doesn't make the same choices. At that time, I had the same chance to be successful or, or whatever I wanted my dreams to be, but I had to make different choices based off of my previous choices. The reason why he said that is because I was the person at school who was always getting in trouble, always getting in fights, and I had so much anger and rage and inside of me at 12 years old.
[00:12:55] You see, I was a product of a biracial marriage, dad being black, mom being white, and so I had identity issues. Um, was upset that my parents got divorced at such a young age. Where do I fit in? Why do other kids. Can bring their dads to donuts days and I didn't have that. Or, uh, after baseball games, dads would carry their, their kids equipment or just anything that had to do with a traditional family.
[00:13:25] I believe that I was just really hurting internally because of that. And so that's why my sixth grade teacher made those comments because I was just lashing out every single day at whether it was at recess, in the classroom. And I really, uh, was just, uh, hurt emotionally and I didn't know how to voice that.
[00:13:44] And so I think the only way that I could get my thoughts out of my head or um, act out, so to speak, just to bring the pain to other people instead of, uh, being a model citizen in society. And I didn't know how to do it. And I think that at that moment with my sixth grade teacher, that was my wake up call of, if you keep acting this way, Your life's not gonna turn out to be the professional athlete that you want to be.
[00:14:13] Your life can be different, and it's not the way that you envision it, but it's the way that people perceive me. And so that moment it was, I need to make a change in my life and I need to make a change for the better. So after the talk that my sixth grade teacher had with my mom, it, it wasn't just like a light bulb Aha! Moment where things changed because I was, I able to identify a problem.
[00:14:38] Um, just like anything else, it takes time. And so I identified that I wanted to change, but I just didn't know how. And so, you know, a funny story is, you know, they say when, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And my teacher just so happened to be one of my best friends who was a year older than me by the name of Todd Early, and Todd came from traditional background, uh, two parent household, one of my best friends who lived across, uh, around the corner from me.
[00:15:05] And I remember going to Todd's house all the time. And just when I'd go to the refrigerator, because I was uh, one of those chunky kids at the time where I would always eat everything where I'd tell people I was just a growing boy. But I would go to Todd's refrigerator and I'd look at his report card on the refrigerator and I'd see a a a a a six A's.
[00:15:24] And I would think first like, whoa, wonder what that feels like. Cuz it, up until that point, my highest grade point average was a 2.3. And then I remember that same week calling Todd like three days in a row. Like I'd call him after school, I'd say, Todd, you wanna hang out? You wanna play? Nope. I'd call him three straight days until finally on the third day I said, man, what's up Todd?
[00:15:52] You hang out with me at school, but you don't hang out with me after school. Is it my breath? Am I funky? Why don't you want to hang out? And he gave me like the best piece of advice that I could ever, ever receive at that time.
[00:16:05] He said, Thomas. When we get outta school, the first thing that I do is I come home and I do my homework, I do my chores, and then whatever time I have left to go outside and play or play sports or hang out, that's what I do. He said, let me ask you this question. What's the first thing you do when you come home? And I said, well, first thing I do is I take off my backpack, get outta my school clothes, get into my plate clothes, and let's go play. That's the first thing I do. He said, well, what's the thing you do after that? I go, then I do my homework. He said, that's the difference between us two. He said, you do the things you want to do first, and then you do the things you have to do second.
[00:16:41] When I get outta school, I come home and I do the things I have to do first, and then I do the things I want to do second, and Todd gave me just this gift at that time because it carried over into life, sports, everything.
[00:16:56] Another story is in high school, finding out if you want to be successful, the thing you have to do in life, is you have to be willing to do the things that other people aren't willing to do. Well, I remember high school coach, he gave us homework, so to speak, after, after a game one night that we lost and we shouldn't have lost the game.
[00:17:17] After the game, coach brought us up, said, Hey guys, I wanna teach you how to finish tonight. He said, I want every single one of you guys to go home and do a hundred pushups. And you heard all the complaining. Everybody was complaining, didn't want to do it. We just finished a game, we were tired.
[00:17:33] He said, I want you, I want you to learn how to finish. So I don't care how many sets, just make sure you do a hundred pushups. So I went home and I did pushups and my mom's looking at me a little funny like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm doing pushups. She was watching TV and I was a little embarrassed, but I did my hundred pushups.
[00:17:49] Finally woke up the next day, when I was in the shower, shampoo in my hair, I just remember how tired my shoulders were, get to school, hanging out with my friends, and I go around the circle and I start asking every single one of 'em, how many did you do? First guy was telling me, no, I did 70. The next guy, I did 50, 30. Somebody was like, I didn't even do 'em.
[00:18:10] And I learned at that moment that if you want something in life, you have to identify what other people who are chasing the same thing aren't willing to do. And then you can master those things to become as successful as you want to be. So just like Todd had reminded me and taught me, do the things you have to do first, and then you can do the things you want to do.
[00:18:33] And that's helped me in sports, that's helped me in business, that's helped me with motivational speaking. That helped me even becoming an author. So I encourage all of you to make sure, find out what other people aren't willing to do, master those things. And remember, do the things you have to do first so that you can do the things you want to do later.
[00:18:55] Growing up um, to be completely honest, faith was not, uh, a big part of my life. Um, I wasn't a bad kid. I didn't believe in nothing or, or atheist or Buddha or anything. I literally just wasn't, uh, privy to it. And I won't forget this story. At 18 years old, it was my graduation and my dad had flown out from Florida all the way to Vacaville to come to my high school graduation.
[00:19:23] And it was one of the hottest days of the year. I think it was like 112 degrees. And my dad shows up and he's wearing like this dark purple suit, real fly looking sweet. And uh, the reason why I bring up that story is cuz we still laugh about it until this day where my dad was sitting there in the stands, in the high school bleachers and he was just sweating.
[00:19:43] Oh my goodness. Can't even believe, uh, he decided to wear that shirt or he decided to wear that suit because it was so hot. And after graduation, we went back to my house for a little bit of a celebration. Coaches, family, friends, a lot of people came over and it was about a couple hours into the party. My dad tells me, we're going to the, uh, I gotta leave head back to Florida.
[00:20:09] And so I walked into his car and my dad reaches in the car and says, I got something for you. And at least in my mind, I thought he was getting ready to hand me a brand new car, some car keys, a whole bunch of money, something for graduation, and handed me a Bible. And he said, this right here, we'll give you more strength, more encouragement than I could ever give you.
[00:20:30] He said his boxing coach from when he grew up, gave him that Bible. And today he wanted to give that to me. And I'm thinking to myself, man, what am I gonna do with this? I don't know how to read it. I don't know where to start. I don't know how long the story goes. I never really read the Bible like that.
[00:20:46] And he was sure enough right, because about a few months later in the training camp at USC, I needed more strength, I needed more encouragement, I needed more persistence. I just needed something that I never had before because this was the first time in my entire life where I wasn't good enough at sports.
[00:21:06] I'd always been able to hide playing sports. I'd always been able to get by based off of my athletic ability. But this time I wasn't able to do that. And so the same bible that my dad gave me that I had no clue what to do with that, he told me would give me more strength, more encouragement than he could ever give me actually showed up.
[00:21:27] I was taking a nap one day in training camp while at usc and the team chaplain came up, tapped me on the shoulder and said, tonight we got Bible study. And I was thinking, do I go to Bible study or do I go to sleep? Do I go to Bible study? Do I go to sleep? I said, I'm gonna go to sleep.
[00:21:44] So about a week later, chaplain comes up. Same thing, we got Bible study tonight. Do I go to Bible study? Do I go to sleep? Do I go to Bible study? Do I go to sleep? And finally I said, Nope. I'm not gonna Bible study cuz I'm gonna need to get some sleep. He said, Thomas, I promise you this. If you come to Bible study, you'll get more rest than if you go to sleep.
[00:22:05] And so I went and there became my, my spiritual journey. My faith started to grow from that day forward because he was right. Even though I didn't get as much sleep that night, I got more word. And as I got more word, more connected with God, learning more about God, and then also the messages and the things that God wanted me to see for my life, I just grew more and more connected to his voice and to his purpose for my life.
[00:22:33] And so if it had not been for my dad giving me the Bible, I don't know where my faith would be. I know it wouldn't be as strong. I know that I would not have had the encouragement going through the trials and tribulations that I went through. So for that, I'm forever grateful that my dad decided to give me his Bible so that I could develop my own faith and own relationship with God.
[00:22:56] Because I'll tell you this right now, all of the things that I've gone through since receiving the Bible, I wouldn't have made it through if I would not have received the Bible. So my dad was a superhero in that moment, and it was definitely obedient to God's voice.
[00:23:13] One of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life is transition out of football.
[00:23:19] The whole reason that was the one of the hardest and most difficult things for me to do is because the whole time growing up, I always consider myself an athlete. I was always connected to sports. I, that was where my identity was. And so to no longer be able to have that, it literally almost killed me.
[00:23:40] Where I thought I was prepared for the transition, whether it was in college or whether it was playing professional sports during my off time, I tried different internships. I tried different programs just to see some of the things that would keep my passion and keep me interested when I got done playing.
[00:23:57] And how did I come into motivational speaking? People ask me this all the time. I was taking a flight all the way from Tampa Bay to California. I'll never forget, it was a Friday morning and I'm just writing on a piece of paper. What do I want to do with the rest of my life? So I just started writing.
[00:24:18] What did I like about the first 27 years? I could play sports, I could have fun. I could act like a kid on the football field and then act like a responsible adult off. I love connecting with people. I love pushing my mind and my body to a certain limit. I said, this is what I want to do. I wanna work just as hard for six months as I did in football and get paid just as much money.
[00:24:43] That was like one of those things where you just have a little bit higher of an expectation than what the reality was because I'll tell you this, that's not the case. But I thought, you know what? How about I can dream? So writing down, I said the same thing I did in football as a middle linebacker, was taking the information from the defensive coordinator and telling it to 10 other players.
[00:25:07] I love that. I love being in front of an, a crowd. I love being in front of the huddle and getting the, a defense and the other defensive players to see what was possible, and also getting them inspired to see what wasn't possible. So motivating them was something I loved, something I was passionate about.
[00:25:24] I also loved encouraging people. Whether it was my teammates, family members, or anybody who I came across, I always wanted to find an a positive, encouraging word to tell them, to uplift them, to make it to the next moment. Because I had so many coaches, so many mentors along the way who, when I wanted to quit, I wanted to give up, they were giving me a positive and encouraging word. So I wrote down, I'll never forget this, the last thing I wrote down on that same piece of paper before we landed in LA was, I want to be the person that everybody speaks to right before they get ready to do something they don't even believe they can do.
[00:25:59] And I said, that's my mission statement. That's what I want to do. Well, that was a Friday and two days later I'm driving to church out in, uh, Shepperd in the Hills out in Porter Ranch where Pastor Dudley was, was speaking.
[00:26:10] And I'm driving out there from downtown, which is about a 40 minute drive, and I'm just asking God, okay, God, You know why You took me out and away from the game. Whether it was for safety issues, uh, you wanted me to, uh, move with a deeper mission, a purpose, um, I, I still don't know to this day, but I'm just praying. God, tell me something. Tell me something. Tell me something. So I park my car, grab my Bible. I start walking to the church and I walk through the doors.
[00:26:38] And I'll never forget hearing this song this way. And I'd heard this song a thousand times, but I never heard it this way. It said, my chains are gone and now I'm free. And the song was amazing, grace. And I just remember thinking to myself, okay, God, we got something today. You, you, you, you definitely want to tell me something.
[00:26:56] So I sit down, the pastor's going over his message, and to be completely honest, I couldn't even tell you what the message was about, but I just remember God having my full and undivided attention telling me, Thomas, you thought football was your purpose, but it was just your passion to lead you to your purpose. Your purpose is people, building up people.
[00:27:17] Now you'll have a bigger platform because you played in the NFL, but that was not your reason. And I feel 100% that if God wouldn't have given me that message that day, I'd have been lost because losing my identity, but I regained my identity through exploring and finding out that people and motivating people was my purpose.
[00:27:41] And so I'll never forget that day that God had a conversation with me. And even though it hasn't been easy, even though it hasn't been, uh, I haven't been fearless the whole time, I at least knew I was on the right track, which when the scriptures say, ask, seek and knock. Ask and you'll be told, seek and you will find and knock, and the door will be open.
[00:28:01] And that's exactly what God did to me that day, which I needed him at that crucial time in my life because I lost something I thought I needed, which was the game of football, but God came through for me and showed me that I have a reason for being on this earth, and it's not just to play the game of football.
[00:28:22] I think accountability's one of the most important parts of leadership, um, accountable to whatever the mission is, accountable to the vision, accountable to, uh, the standards. Because sometimes we, we can't see ourselves, you know, it's easier to look through the window than it is to look through, into the mirror.
[00:28:44] And so we have to have people who can hold us accountable, where we can't have the ego leading it. It literally needs to be with, uh, uh, an open mind and an open heart where we have to have people who are on the same level who can hold us accountable. Because one of the hardest things is if the people who are following you don't respect you, they're not seeing you lead by example.
[00:29:10] Then it's easy to lose them, um, as, as followers and getting them to do the things that, that you want them to do for the growth, for the betterment. The hardest thing is to lead people from the front. When you're not participating in the work.
[00:29:33] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, Thomas explains that leadership is about holding the respect of those who follow you. He mentions how we can set a positive example for others and how we ensure that we are the best leaders when we hold each other accountable.
[00:29:51] Thomas Williams: Leadership. Wow. One of the, uh, one of the biggest topics and buzzwords that are out right now.
[00:29:59] You know, it's funny whether it's, uh, a conference, whether it's a conversation, or whether it's a podcast. The theme of leadership, it, uh, it makes me think. Uh, and being completely transparent, it's, uh, doesn't make me think about myself. It makes me think about all the other people who have led, whether it's been in sports, whether it's in business, whether it's in life, whether it's in public speaking.
[00:30:26] All the people who I look up to, it reminds me of them. Uh, one of the things that God has blessed me with has been a great example of leadership, whether it was when I was growing up and my mom's boyfriend at the time, Ron, he led me in a way asking me simple questions of when people see you, what are they gonna think?
[00:30:51] They're only gonna think about you based off the actions, whether it was my high school coach who was a leader and made sure that all of his players felt like they were heard, listened to, and that they had a fair chance. When I got to college, I played for one of the greatest coaches in the world, Ken Norton, Jr.
[00:31:08] And his leadership ability was, he always wanted his players to feel like people before they felt like players. And he always wanted to make sure that he saved time for us and listened to us so that he could motivate us individually.
[00:31:21] Pete Carroll the same thing in college. Great leader cuz he led by example. He made it really, really simple. Always compete, whether it was on the practice field, whether it was in the classroom, whether it was in the weight room, or whether it was on the playing field come game day. When I transitioned outside of sports, I had great leaders as well. A guy by the name of David B Scott, AKA pops, the guy who makes sure that you always dress for the job that you want, not the job that you have.
[00:31:52] Whether it was Scott and Kelly who have helped me get my business off the ground, taking it from an idea in my brain to a reality. They were great leaders. Um, John Gordon, who's one of my mentors right now. Great leader. Public speaking and as an author, just leading by example, opening up doors for the people who are following him to have exposure to it.
[00:32:17] So I don't really consider myself a leader. I think that I have great examples of leaders, uh, which in turn just kind of hold me accountable to the standards of what leadership is. I think a great leader has to do one thing really well. Everything else, uh, can kind of come second, third, fourth. But I think a great leader has to listen, you know, listen, so that you can have something, uh, interesting to say, listen, so that the other person will feel heard, listen, so that you'll have an unbiased opinion on how to lead.
[00:32:55] I'll never forget when I was in college and my, uh, college coach was having a conversation with me. And in this moment, I just needed to be heard and I also needed to be encouraged. And it was going into my senior year and I thought, how can you ever keep fighting when you feel like you can't win the fight?
[00:33:22] And I just said that to him. I said, coach, I don't feel like I'm getting enough playing time. I don't feel like I'm gonna have all the game film and the tape in order to get drafted and play in the NFL. I don't feel like I'm getting the respect I deserve. I don't feel like, I don't feel like, I don't feel a, I was a worrier and I was a complainer in that moment.
[00:33:39] And I said, coach, what if I give everything to the NFL and they still don't want me? I'm trying everything I possibly can, and a great leader again, so he listened to me. He heard exactly what I said in that moment, and then he encouraged me. He said, Thomas, if you give everything that you possibly have to any opportunity, this opportunity, an opportunity in the rest of your life for the rest of your life, if you give everything you can to an opportunity and it still doesn't accept you, maybe that opportunity isn't good enough for you.
[00:34:14] And I remember him in that moment, giving me the confidence to push through and not to stop, not to quit. And he really empowered me. I think if a leader doesn't listen, then he's not really a leader. She's not really a leader.
[00:34:32] The person has to listen first. The next, the next quality a leader has, in my opinion, is they're leading by example. Whether it's in sports, whether it's in a job, whether it's in a house, whether it's in school, whatever you have as a leader, you gotta lead by example. I'll never forget when I was living with my dad in the second grade, you'd always tell me, Hey, make sure when you grow up, you don't smoke cigarettes.
[00:35:02] And could you believe it? He was telling me this while he was lighting up another cigarette. How can you tell me not to smoke cigarettes, and you were smoking cigarettes. Or football coaches who are telling their kids, hey, run after the ball. Do a drill this way. Take on a blocker this way. Catch a ball this way. But they can't do it themselves.
[00:35:24] In the house. You're telling your kids to take out the trash, but the parents aren't illustrating that example and they're not doing it themselves. Or even one of the biggest things I have is the teachers. They're raising our babies, raising the kids. As a leader, you gotta lead by example.
[00:35:44] When you tell a kid they can be anything they want to be, you have to understand. They're looking at you thinking, well, you're a teacher. Is that what you wanted to be? Because I feel like if we're not leading by example, the only thing we're doing is we're talking at people.
[00:35:59] You know, that's why I love the story of Jesus.
[00:36:02] He came down on this earth to lead by example. Say, these are the rules, these are the commandments. In the Old Testament, people didn't get it right. So he said, I need to send my son down on the earth to show you how it can get done. And listening, listening, leading by example. In the third one, and I think a lot of you out there need to hear this one because you are in leadership roles, is you have to understand that you're not gonna get it perfect.
[00:36:33] Have to leave a little bit of room in there for discovery, for exploration. Leaders aren't supposed to be perfect, but they need to be confident. So even if you make a mistake, even if you mess up, that's all right. But be confident, be assertive in your decision. So again, leadership, listen. Lead by example, lead with confidence, and don't be afraid to make a mistake.
[00:37:04] I think accountability's one of the most important parts of leadership, um, accountable to whatever the mission is, accountable to the vision, accountable to, uh, the standards. Because sometimes we, we can't see ourselves, you know, it's easier to look through the window than it is to look through, into the mirror.
[00:37:26] And so we have to have people who can hold us accountable, where we can't have the ego leading it. It literally needs to be with, uh, uh, an open mind and an open heart where we have to have people who are on the same level, who can hold us accountable. Because one of the hardest things is if the people who are following you don't respect you, they're not seeing you lead by example, then it's easy to lose them, um, as, as followers and getting them to do the things that, that you want them to do for the growth, for the betterment.
[00:38:04] The hardest thing is to lead people from the front when you're not participating in the work. And so for all of us as leaders who consider ourselves leaders, no matter how big or small your role is as a leader, what you have to do is you need to be held accountable, allowing other people to hold us accountable in all different areas of our life.
[00:38:31] One of the things I love about God's voice is his accountability. Um, usually it happens for me when I'm going on a walk and I'm just processing something or working through something in my mind, and I feel like I have a really good argument against God. Okay, God, why is this happening? I've done this, I've done this, I've done this.
[00:38:53] And as nice and as subtle, and as firm and as confident, God always seems a way to slap me into shape and remind me of the truth. When I said, God, you know what? I want to be a number one bestseller. I want to be this kind of motivational speaker. I wanna be the top guy. God's saying, are you doing all of the things that you need to be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis to be put in that position?
[00:39:25] And God doesn't tell me that I don't deserve it. He's just asking me the question, holding me accountable. Thomas, this is what you said you wanted to do. Are you doing the things in order to make this happen? And to be honest with you, a lot of the times the answer is no. And so God's holding me accountable, and I think that's one of the greatest illustrations of accountability and leading by example.
[00:39:51] How will I ever be able to get to the places in the position that I want to get to if I'm not being held accountable to the standards? It's one thing to be a public success and a private failure. It's another thing to live a certain standard of life all the way across the board, and I usually get those from moments of accountability with God, and I get 'em also with the people who are in my close circle, holding me accountable to what I said.
[00:40:20] Much is given, much is required, sounds good. It's one of those scriptures that I love to say, but it doesn't feel good when you're having that type of experience. Sometimes a leader has to go through something, not for their own benefit, for their punishment, for their good, but for the good of others, and so that they can lead people certain places.
[00:40:46] Certain times when I got, I was one of the first people outta my friends to stop playing football. And I remember asking God, why me? Why me? Why me? Why me? This isn't fair? And God told me, I didn't remove you from football for punishment, but I strategically and specifically removed you so that you can lead the people who will be coming out of football.
[00:41:12] And so fast forward nine years later, one of my for-profit and nonprofit missions and purpose is to help athletes transitioning outside of football. And again, like I've said before, is that leading by example. So everything that I teach, everything that I share, the nuggets that I drop, the wisdom that I pass along, it's all based off of experience.
[00:41:40] And even though I thought it was for harm and I thought it was something that, it was a punishment where I didn't deserve it, and I started to go into the why me? Why me? Why me? I understood that God was saying, look, I need you to lead people, but in order to lead this group of people, you're gonna have to go through certain things.
[00:41:59] So what is it for you that you've gone through, that you're going through that isn't necessarily a testament for you, but it's for the people who you're leading, the people in your circle, whether it's at work, it's at home, in your community. There's things that you go through and it's not necessarily for you, but it's for the people who you can lead.
[00:42:25] That's what I think when it comes into accountability, comes into listening, and then it comes into leading by example. All of those things have a place for us, but we have to understand that what we go through isn't. The punishment isn't necessarily to harm us, to even stop us, but mainly it's to encourage us so that we can encourage the other people.
[00:42:52] You know, you remember what, uh, what Paul says, says, I have to encourage myself. And I think that's beautiful cuz if you can encourage yourself, you can encourage anybody else.
[00:43:05] All right, so who wants to be a leader? Well, I got news for you. Everybody's a leader. It doesn't matter how big, how small your tribe is or the people in the group of people that you're leading, there's somebody always looking to you for advice and acknowledge an example.
[00:43:24] Um, always, always understand there's somebody who we're looking at for advice. The way, the path, an example, and I love it when people say what makes a Christian. I don't have the answer. I just say one of the answers for me is to follow Christ. Pick up your cross and follow Christ. That's what I think about all the time.
[00:43:49] It's based off of His examples, based off of His teachings, based off of His experiences. He's just leading from all of those places. And the same thing for me is, again, not saying that I am a leader, leadership guru, none of that. I think just I've been fortunate enough to have a bunch of great leaders and mentors in my lives, and the only thing that all of them told me was, you can never repay me. You can just pay it forward.
[00:44:20] And so that's a little bit of my theory, my methodology, where I believe, for me, my calling in the leadership space is we are gonna all listen. We can all lead by example. And even though we always feel like we want to be perfect or you have to be perfect, you don't need to be.
[00:44:42] Cuz a leader is not somebody who's perfect, a leader, somebody who tries things, is open to new things and makes the people who are following them felt heard and seen. So leadership, even though it's this great big, fancy word, it's really simple.
[00:45:01] The people who are looking up to you, are you giving them a good example? Are you holding yourself accountable to the same things and the same standards that you're expecting of them? And third, be confident. Be you. You are a leader. Remember that,
[00:45:23] You know, I always, I always am reminded that I am responsible and held accountable for the things that I know. Where I know I wouldn't have gotten this far in my life without the help of so many of other people. I know that it was teachers who played a pivotal role. It was coaches, it was mentors, it was parents, my parents, other friends, parents.
[00:45:46] There were so many people who have a huge, played a huge role in me getting to this place that I am today, that I really feel that all of our obligation and our responsibility is to pass it. And the only way that a gift can get broken or the disconnect can happen is we stop doing our part. And our part was when we were younger or when we were coming up through the ranks, we were supposed to learn.
[00:46:09] Somebody was supposed to teach us and they're supposed to teach us what they've been taught. And the same thing is what we're supposed to do. If we've been given, then that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to give, you know, Maya Angelou has a great quote says, when you learn, teach, and when you get, give.
[00:46:25] And I think that's our responsibility is that as Christians, as humans, no matter what you believe in, no matter what your background is, is that things that you were given, you're supposed to give when you see somebody like yourself in a situation and having the opportunity to learn, that's what we're supposed to do, is we're supposed to teach them.
[00:46:49] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series. Thomas describes leaving a legacy by helping out student athletes and USC sports programs. By serving others, we are leaving a legacy that encourages people to live the best lives they can. Thomas defines a servant's legacy as a blessing to others rather than receiving.
[00:47:14] Thomas Williams: One of my favorite things to think about other than the future and dreaming is legacy. And when I think about legacy, I always think about the icons. If you throw a name like Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, mother Teresa, Gandhi, Walter Payton, all of these people have a legacy in my mind, and there's so many others that I could have added.
[00:47:40] So you think about the people who left the legacy for you. You know today, whether they're living or they're not, they thought about you as they were going on their journey, as they were taking their walk, as they were impacting the world, as they were impacting the community, as they were making their impact every single day, they woke up with purpose, intentions, and with you in mind.
[00:48:07] For me, the legacy is the last name. Growing up without my biological father in my life, and we have the exact same name, is one of the hardest things to do because in my opinion, a man, males. Um, the last name has to mean something to 'em. And so you pass your name down to your kids, to your grandkids, and so on and so forth.
[00:48:39] And so the word legacy to me starts with family. The people in my immediate family, how did I affect them? How did I impact them? And then from there it goes on to the community, the places that I have lived and the places that I live, every single day. And beside that is I believe that one of my biggest legacies that I'm supposed to impact for me is college athletes and professional athletes around the world as far as transitioning.
[00:49:08] You know, in order to do that every single day, I have to put those people in my mind and think about the people in my family with my last name. I have to think about the people in my community. And then I also have to think about athletes who have transitioned, who have retired, and then also the athletes who will transition and who will retire.
[00:49:27] Because I believe that we're all supposed to impact the community of people, and now it's just up to us to decide and to pick which one we feel called to lead. If you think about it right now, all of you who are listening to this, everybody has a favorite scripture and you can probably quote it and then you also remember who said it, and also there's a legacy of the person who said it.
[00:49:52] And so thinking about that, at that time, they were thinking about us who combined. We would read it, we would hear it, we would say it, and that's the impact that they would leave on us. That's the legacy that we have for them. They always thought about other people, wasn't necessarily about themselves, and they never think about themselves when it comes to legacy. You have to think about other people when it comes to legacy, and so I've noticed that every single day waking up it's, who am I going to inspire today? Who am I gonna inspire in this moment? Who is it that I'm called to leave a legacy for? One of the areas that I like to focus on is the school that I came from.
[00:50:32] So USC for the last two years, I've taught a player development program, um, which helps the freshman student athletes transition into college. And so one, by going to that school, I really felt connected to it. But then also those are my little brothers, my little sisters, uh, in a way because they say the Trojan family.
[00:50:56] And so every semester by going up there and helping the freshman transition into school, I always feel like I'm doing my duty and my part to leave a legacy at my school. Now, I don't know what the legacy's gonna play out like, but I just know that every single opportunity, I get a chance to go up there and really share 'em with the student athletes of some things that they're gonna experience while they're in college, whether it's how to juggle the class schedule, how to juggle the schedule of being a student athlete.
[00:51:26] Everything from my experience of being there by going back and sharing that information so that they can learn from the successes and mistakes, uh, that I endured, that I learned from the people who came before me and so on and so forth. So that's one of the areas. Living here in LA trying to connect with many non-profit organizations that have to deal with, uh, the youth and serving while I'm in town has been one of my passions.
[00:51:53] Uh, this last year I went to a non-traditional school and served for a whole semester. And by helping these kids who come from some difficult situations in life and letting them know that even though they might not feel like there's a way, there's always, there's always a way out by letting them see that all of us have a story.
[00:52:23] By sharing the wisdom with them, I love impacting the youth in the community because I feel like there's so many people who helped me. There's so many people who volunteered for me and gave me things. So I just feel like it's my obligation to do the same thing. The reason why I have such a big connection with inspiring the youth, people who are younger than me, not only because I got inspired by people when I was growing up, but because I'll never forget what my mom told me more than anything, was more important than this life lesson.
[00:53:07] The life lesson my mom gave me was Thomas. I don't care how much money you make in this world, never forget it's extremely important to how you affect mankind. That was it. And so I think from that moment forward, it was, how can I bless people based off of what I have? You know, people always say it's blessed to be a blessing, but I had to learn that and actually practice that based off of the things that my mom taught me coming from an early age.
[00:53:40] There's people who gave me the felds, I'll never forget who I, when I was in high school, they bought me my Letterman jacket because we couldn't afford it. The Alexanders gave me my first car cuz we couldn't afford it. The Felds also bought me my first suit when we won the national championship and when I was in college and we went to the White House cause they didn't have a suit, so they brought me a suit.
[00:54:05] Um, there's people who let me come to their house and eat and just gave, gave, gave, not because of what I could do athletically or not because of the places that I was going, but because they had the kindness in their heart. And I think that's the legacy that I wanna leave is that I gave because somebody gave to me.
[00:54:28] So every time I have an opportunity to give, whether it's time, money, um, a shoulder to cry on, an ear, I know that every single circumstance that was difficult. I had somebody to talk to if I needed, absolutely needed something, whether it was money, whether it was something, somebody always gave it to me and it didn't come from the people who were closest to me.
[00:54:52] Um, most of the time in my life it's just been wisdom and knowledge, advice. What would you do if you were me in this situation? And those are the same kind of conversations I love to have because I feel like the reason why I was given it so I can tell it, so I can teach it, so I can share it. You know, I always, I always am reminded that I am responsible and held accountable for the things that I know.
[00:55:18] Where I know I wouldn't have gotten this far in my life without the help of so many of other people. I know that it was teachers who played a pivotal role. It was coaches, it was mentors, it was parents, my parents, other friends, parents. There were so many people who had a huge, played a huge role in me getting to this place that I am today, that I really feel that all of our obligation and our responsibility is to pass it.
[00:55:42] And the only way that a gift can get broken or the disconnect can happen is we stopped doing our part. And our part was when we were younger or when we were coming up through the ranks, we were supposed to learn. Somebody was supposed to teach us and they were supposed to teach us what they've been taught and the same thing as what we're supposed to do.
[00:56:03] If we've been given, then that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to give, you know, Maya Angelou has a great quote says, when you learn, teach, and when you get, give.
[00:56:11] And I think that's our responsibility is that as Christians, as humans, no matter what you believe in, no matter what your background is, is that things that you were given, you're supposed to give when you see somebody like yourself in a situation and having the opportunity to learn, that's what we're supposed to do, is we're supposed to teach 'em.
[00:56:34] And I also think legacies biggest component is if you've learned so much, if you've been given so much, if you are blessed, then you're supposed to be the same thing to others. The biggest thing is Jesus didn't know us personally, never saw Him. I haven't seen Him, but He came down because God said, I love you.
[00:57:02] You're kind, all of the humans, all the people. I love you so much that I'm gonna give you my only and begotten son.
[00:57:12] His legacy is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Didn't know us didn't have to, but He gave us eternal life. And so the air that you're breathing, the blessings that you have, there's always people who have less and there's people who need our help.
[00:57:33] We have to teach them, we have to show them why did Jesus come to teach us, to show us, to teach us how it can be done, to show us how it could be done in human form, and to know that we can have internal life through Him. But said, Jesus, I made you my image and my likeness. So the things that He was called to do are the same thing that we're called to do.
[00:57:59] And we break the blessings. It's when we stop blessing the same way we've been blessed. You know, in sports there's a saying that you can always get better. So even if you're the best, you can always get better. And I think the same thing goes along for the legacy aspect. And by giving to people, being generous, being a blessing together, we can always be more of a blessing.
[00:58:25] And so recently I started journaling every single day I'll journal something, it can be five minutes, it can be an hour, but I'm always journaling something. And in that time period, I always find a blessing that I didn't notice before. For example, the blessing the other day was, God, I'm just so thankful for all the opportunities.
[00:58:46] I'm so thankful for the, all the opportunities that You've given me to speak, to be able to use my brain, to be able to use my mind, to be able to use my voice. I'm so thankful. And then it started making me think about all the people who have blessed me, whether it was, uh, with wisdom, with knowledge. And so I reached out to all of those people the next day, and now I'm not gonna lie, it's just about three or four of them.
[00:59:13] But I reached out to 'em and I said, thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for doing this. And of course they said, you're welcome. They said, but you're supposed to do that for the next person. So for those of you who are out there, think about the people who are just like you used to be, whether it was when you were a kid, whether it was when you were younger, where you can have an opportunity to help somebody else out.
[00:59:43] One of the favorite quotes, I remember reading in a book a long time ago, and I, to be completely honest, can't even tell you what book it was, but the quote was, if you want more of something, give double that amount. So if you want more money, give more money. If you want more opportunities create and give more opportunities.
[01:00:03] If you want more love, give more love. If you want more time, give more time. And remember that the things that you have been given are supposed to be the things that you're supposed to give.
[01:00:19] When we see each other, we have to understand that we are just like the people in this world cuz we're all human beings and we gotta give everybody the same opportunity and chances that we've been given look outward to help.
[01:00:39] They say, you work on your legacy while you're living, but your legacy is born when you're gone. What are you creating that's gonna last a lot longer than you? What are you doing every single day that if somebody else were to tell the story, it would last longer than you? I've been so lucky to have so many mentors and so many people who have shown me the way.
[01:01:07] Show me how to get to my first dream of playing professional sports. Show me how to graduate college. Show me how to start a business. Show me how motivational speaking works, showing what's like to write a book. The blessings that I have in my life are only because of the people who have given me the knowledge, the wisdom, and the time that they've been given.
[01:01:35] I'll never forget my first mentor, the legacy that my mom has left for me. Mentors, whether it was in college, who gave me so many life principles, the people who gave me when I needed and didn't have when I was in high school. They gave me all these things so that I'm here today to be able to talk about it.
[01:01:59] They're not here, they're not around, but I'm still telling their story. For me, I hope that people tell the story of because Thomas was doing it, whatever it is that I can do it to, that I'm the example of how possible and possibilities are the legacy of even when you come outta playing sports at any level, the best of your days are still ahead of you.
[01:02:26] The best of your days are still ahead of you.
[01:02:29] That he led by example, that part of his legacy was he was a great listener. So I encourage you, take a little bit of time, find out what do you want your legacy to be, so that every single day you're not trying to run a different race. You're running your race based off of your legacy.
[01:02:49] And know that they say on everybody's tombstone, there's a day you were born and the day that you died, they say your legacy. Is what's in the dash between. So for all you out there, start living your legacy, and if you're living it, how can you live it a little stronger? How can somebody talk and tell your story when you're gone?
[01:03:11] And the people, some of your heroes, the people who you've looked up to, the people who, when they say, whose legacy do you admire? What is it about that legacy that you admire? And learn from them.
[01:03:30] Enjoy leaving your legacy. Enjoy running this race and inspire somebody else while you're doing it.
[01:03:42] Steve Gatena: Everything that we have in this life is a gift, a blessing that we've received from someone else, first, from God who died on the cross for our sins, and so that we would have a path to eternal life and a direct relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus granted us this blessing and all the good tidings that we receive are gifts from God.
[01:04:09] First and foremost, all of us have had people who have shared with us their wisdom and their knowledge. People who've opened doors for us, people who've given us opportunity, people who've opened their hearts and just given us love and compassion. People who have blessed us with things like food or water or shelter or job opportunities.
[01:04:35] We do not live a life or get through it without help from others. And what we have received, God calls us to give back, and God has never instructed us to keep or hoard his blessings for ourselves. Give, give, give what we receive. Giving is a holy act, and there is no end to our giving, just as there is no end to our receiving.
[01:05:07] This week on Pray.com's Relentless Hope podcast, Thomas Williams, former NFL linebacker turned motivational speaker taught us to give back what we received. He shared some of his early experiences and what he received in the form of life lessons, inspiration, discipline, and work ethics. His Biblical messages from God that led him to find his real purpose in life when a neck injury ended his five year professional career.
[01:05:41] Thomas taught us that often we go through experiences, not for our benefit or punishment, but so that we can use those experiences to benefit others, so that we can better lead and guide people through similar experiences because we've already lived them ourselves.
[01:06:01] Thomas also taught us that we're all leaders and that we need to lead by example to listen and to let our people be heard, to be assertive and confident in our decision making, and to go easier on ourselves and stop expecting that we'll be perfect or never make mistakes. We also learned how Thomas hopes to leave a legacy. Of giving to others because others gave to him.
[01:06:28] We hear about some of the most influential people in Thomas's early life and how it was because of their help and their good deeds and their kindness, that Thomas was able to realize his dream of being a pro athlete. Thomas encouraged us to reflect on the blessings that we've been given and to think about who can we help and how can we help them, and how can we teach what we've learned and give what we've been given.
[01:06:59] Remember, God wants to bless our lives and he does so every day. And he also wants us to give back, to give more love, to give more attention, to give more time, to give more money, to give more kindness to those around us and those in need. When we give, we allow God to work through us. We allow Him to shine His love and His light onto someone else.
[01:07:29] Knowing this, how can we ever withhold our giving? I want you to remember, we only have what we give, so what are you gonna give today?
[01:07:44] If today's episode with Thomas inspired you, I want you to share it with someone you know so that you can give hope a voice.
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